Q*U*A*N*T*U*M L*E*A*P
by majhoulihan
Summary: Sam leaps into Hawkeye Pierce at the 4077th


In the _original_ history of the 4077th, Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan files a complaint against Hawkeye and Dr. B.J. Hunnicut after numerous practical jokes played upon her and Frank Burns by the two. Citing them unfit for military duty, Margaret pushes a court martial and both are dishonorably discharged and sent home. It is up to Sam to convince Hot Lips otherwise and change the history to reflect the ensuing events of the series.

If you are a _QL_ or a _M*A*S*H_ fan, I hope you will enjoy this rendering of two of my favorite television shows.

_Quantum Leap_ is a property of Belisarius Productions and MCA/Universal. _M*A*S*H_, is owned by Fox. No profit is made from this site. Any comments regarding the writing are welcome. 

Excerpts from Psalm 16 used in this story were taken from the King James version of the New Testament. I know that this version is not generally used by Catholics, but I used a copy of the NT given to me by a Gideon on the way to work, so that is why Father Mulcahy is reading KJV verse.

"Suicide is Painless" first was heard in the film _M*A*S*H_ and was written by Johnny Mandel and Dave Altman (?).

**A Note on Colonel Flagg** : Casual viewers of "M*A*S*H" may not be familiar with Col. Flagg, but die-hard fans of the 4077th know him as one of the more popular recurring characters in the series. He was portrayed by Edward Winter and averaged one episode per season; Flagg was a CIA agent who stopped by the camp occasionally to cause trouble and act like an arrogant blowhard. He was also convinced that Hawkeye was a Communist sympathizer and therefore was always trying to blow his "cover." Flagg liked to wear disguises (which everyone usually saw through) and insisted that nobody see him leave a room (at times he would shut off a light and jump out a window). The episodes featuring Colonel Flagg made for some of the funniest of the series and can be seen in reruns: some stations will host a "Colonel Flagg" week featuring five or six shows. Because this fan fiction concentrates on Hawkeye, I couldn't see not including Flagg.

**A Note on Captain Spalding** : Spalding was another recurring character who appeared once in a while. He is easily remembered because he has no speaking lines in any of his episodes: he sings. In his episodes, he opens and closes the show sitting just outside of camp, strumming his guitar and singing, almost resembling a Greek chorus. I put him in this story because the Spalding episodes are some of my favorites.

* * *

### Prologue

_July 23, 1952, M*A*S*H 4077th Unit, Korea_

"Dorothy, wake up, dear. The storm's over and the Tin Man's gone back to Detroit."

"Unnnh," Sam groaned, as he opened his eyes to see four or five blurred faces hovering over him, all displaying varying degrees of concern. He tried to lift his head from the cot on which he was lying for a better look when a dull pain grasping the back of his skull squeezed tighter and grounded him.

As his vision sharpened, Sam saw the face closest to him come into focus--a short-haired mustachioed man wearing wrinkled blue hospital scrubs eased Sam back into a flat position. "Easy, Hawk," he advised. "You just got the wind knocked out you. Rest a bit."

Sam stared straight upward. Everyone else around him--two women and another man--were dressed in military fatigues. A bright uncovered light bulb, attached to a makeshift ceiling with a simple cord, swung over head like a giant firefly looking for a place to land. _I must be a soldier_, Sam thought. _Have I returned to Vietnam_?

He blinked several times--the people were crowding him too much to allow a clear view of his surroundings, though he did notice one other man peering over the head of the slightly heavyset, Oriental woman. He was difficult to miss, Sam noticed, as he was wearing large faux diamond earrings and a Clara Barton nurse hat.

"Is that a man in a dress or just a woman with a severe five o'clock shadow?" Sam croaked, surprised with how easily the words slipped from his mouth.

The man with the mustache grinned. He leaned over and patted Sam's forehead with a damp cloth. "Looks like ol' Hawkeye's back, folks," he said as everyone around him exhaled in relief. Suddenly the man wearing the earrings tore through the small throng of people and knelt at Sam's side. Sam noticed the man's full getup now--a flowing white nurse's uniform complete with white support stockings and red and blue cape. _Either this man's trying to get out of the military or I've just been hit with some serious Agent Orange_, Sam thought, trying not to laugh.

"Captain, speak to me!" The man/nurse clasped Sam's right hand between his own. "Don't you recognize your loyal friend, Klinger? Remember how we used to go down to Rick's bar every night and get completely wasted while Sam played our song?"

"Klinger!" The Oriental nurse chided.

Klinger stood up abruptly. "Wait. That wasn't us, that was _Casablanca_. Oops, I'm late for duty!" With that, Klinger burst out of the room. Sam's bedside rattled as those around him broke into laughter.

Sam, still very bewildered, looked over some more shoulders in hopes of seeing Al. As expected, however, Sam's hologram companion was nowhere to be found, and Sam sank back into the cot, electing to keep his mouth shut as long as possible. Any comments these people found odd he could attribute to whatever it was that knocked "Hawkeye" unconcious.

The man with the mustache leaned closer to Sam and slid an arm underneath his back in a lifting motion. Sam caught the reflection of the dogtags dangling around the man's neck, trying to discern the imbedded words. B.J. Hunnicut...Army Captain...a long serial number. Turning his head, Sam noticed other cots lying parallel to his--some empty, some supporting other wounded soldiers. So he _was_ in Vietnam again. Sam let himself be lifted, wondering why he would be sent back--as far as his "Swiss-cheese" memory could recall, Al had informed him that Tom, Sam's brother, had survived the war. 

Of course, Sam knew, that Tom wasn't the only grunt wading the murky bogs looking for Charlie. Perhaps, though, he would get to see his brother again.

"Kellye, help me get Hawk out of here," B.J. motioned to the Oriental woman with his head. To Sam he said, "Hawk, we're taking you back to the Swamp to recover. We got some soldiers coming out of O.R. and they get first pick on the cots."

Sam nodded. So he was a doctor, and not a grunt. A doctor named Hawkeye Something-or-other. "What happened to me?" Sam croaked, his head still swimming in pain.

Both women came around the cot to help Sam stand. "That's what _I_ want to know. What could you possibly say to Margaret to make her want to smash in your skull with an empty bottle?" asked B.J. She's taken all of your remarks in stride before, but it looks like her thick skin is starting to wear off. You're lucky you don't need stitches."

Kellye glanced toward a closed door, where through the frosted glass window anyone paying attention could see two silhouettes--those of an ample-bosomed woman and a short gentlemen--gesturing wildly. Gradually the voices behind the door increasing in volume and agitation.

"I think we're about to find out for ourselves," said the other woman.

The door opened and the gesturing woman, this one a harried blonde wearing a tight beige t-shirt and baggy olive green pants, burst into the room and stuck an accusing finger in Sam's face. "You imbecile! You absolute beast! You are not fit to serve in this unit and I won't rest until you and your partner in crime," the finger shifted to an astonished Captain Hunnicut, "are court-martialed and thrown out of the Army!" she bellowed.

"Me?" cried B.J. as he struggled to keep Sam from falling to the ground. "I was just sewing up a soldier when I heard you tried to kill our best surgeon. What did _I_ do?" 

The short gentleman, a silver-haired soul, followed the angry woman into the room. "Houlihan, you let Captain Pierce alone!" he demanded. "You've wrecked enough havoc on him for one war."

Sam, meanwhile, was too weak to support himself. His mouth, however, appeared to function just fine.

"A court martial. Gee, Hot Lips, is that a threat or a promise?" Sam sneered, suddenly frightened. _Did I say that_? he asked himself. _Have I just lost complete control of myself_?

The one he called "Hot Lips" exploded, her face reddening with boiling blood. "Oh! You...you..." She spat many incoherent words until deciding to let her hands speak for her. Sam saw a tightened fist fast approaching his eye, and before he could say anything more everything was black again.

### * * *

_March 22, 2005, Quantum Leap HQ, New Mexico_

Rear Admiral Albert Calavicci, dressed to the nines in full regalia, strode quickly to the Waiting Room. At the entrance he found Dr. Verbena Beeks, the resident psychiatrist, rubbing her firm bottom.

"He pinched me," she gasped before Al could have a chance to ask. "He called me 'babe,' asked if I was married, and pinched me square on the ass!" Al, meanwhile, could not help but chuckle at the doctor's brush with sexual harassment. "It's not funny," she insisted. "I was _this_ close to whacking him upside the head with my clipboard."

Al produced his squawking neon handlink computer and pushed a button. "Yeah, I should have warned you when Sam leaped into this case. Ziggy just downloaded Captain Benjamin Frank-, uh, Frank--" Al slapped the handlink, "--Benjamin Franklin Pierce's profile. Verbena, I wouldn't take him too seriously, he's probably not like that all the time. He's an Army surgeon stationed in Korea, and I know from experience that when there's a lull in the fighting there's not much else to do except--"

"Well, perhaps someone should inform _Captain_ Pierce that he's not in Korea, and that free love died with Jimi Hendrix!" With that, Dr. Beeks stormed off, leaving Al behind to chuckle some more. "I'm not going back in there until he's heavily sedated," she added over her shoulder.

"Isn't that your job?" Al retorted, and was answered with Dr. Beek's slender, middle finger.

When the doors swished open, Al saw the body of Dr. Sam Beckett, trussed in a white bodysuit, pacing the cold, gleaming bluish-white floor. He turned to meet Al's curious stare. "Terrific, I've been kidnapped by the Navy," he sighed. "You realize, of course, that we are on the same side?"

Al stepped forward and extended his free hand. "Captain Pierce, I am Admiral Albert Calavicci, and--"

He stopped as Hawkeye, still unaware he was trapped in Sam's body, pressed a folded piece of paper in Al's hand. "Nice meetin' ya, Al. Look, I don't mind being kidnapped. I've been wanting a pass for months, but if you're planning to keep me in this cubicle I'd appreciate some supplies. And maybe a nurse or three."

Al unfolded the paper and read aloud. "Three funnels, beakers, plastic tubing, potatoes..."

Hawkeye took a seat on a white block and crossed his legs. "I'd prefer the Idaho baking kind. Those crappy red-skinned things don't taste as good."

Al looked up from the paper and stared at his grinning companion. "Oh, boy," he muttered.

### * * *

Seeing as how Captain Pierce would be willing to cooperate with the doctors of Project Quantum Leap only if his initial requests of laboratory equipment and homebrew ingredients were granted, Al signed all requisition forms himself and hoped later on that Sam would overlook this in the event he returned home. Thirty minutes after said supplies arrived at the Waiting Room (Al had explained to Captain Pierce that cuts in the military budget gave rise to a nurse shortage), Hawkeye had his makeshift still operating and was pouring the first martini when Al came to check up on him.

Hawkeye offered him the first drink. "It's a bit dry," he warned. "One part vodka, one eyedropper of vermouth."

Al accepted the glass but had no intention of drinking. He had yet to join Sam in Korea, and though Sam wouldn't be able to smell the vodka on him, Al decided not to any chances of looking the least bit intoxicated. "Thanks," he said to Hawkeye, pulling two cigars from his suit pocket.

"Admiral, you're a man after my own heart, and I don't just give it to anybody." Hawkeye took the proferred cigar and inspected it closely. "Cuban?"

"I wouldn't smoke anything else." Al tossed a book of matches in Hawkeye's direction.

As Hawkeye fumbled with the matches, Al set his martini glass down and took a seat next to the captain on a second white block. He still could not get used to seeing Sam Beckett and hearing a completely different person inside. "Captain Pierce, uh, we're going to be leaving you alone here for a bit while we try to discern the exact problems happening in your M*A*S*H unit. Perhaps you could think of any reason why you would expect any trouble?"

"Well, that's easy. _Problem_ is Major Frank Burns's middle name," Hawkeye answered almost immediately. "Don't tell me this is about him and Hot Lips, they've only threatened to have me court-martialed since we set foot in the Orient. Nothing ever comes of their threats, and nothing ever will..." He leaned in close to Al and whispered, "Not as long as they're playing footsie while _Mrs._ Burns is safe and sound in Ft. Wayne."

"Perhaps," Al started, not wanting to give too much of his own information away. For the first time in possibly months, supercomputer Ziggy had enough data for Al to provide Sam for the Leap. Any supplementary info Hawkeye could provide--such as how to influence certain officers in the unit, footsie or no footsie--would naturally help.

Hawkeye sipped thoughtfully on his martini and said suddenly, "Hey, I know why I'm here. It's that damned Colonel Flagg, isn't it? He still thinks I'm a Commie sympathizer, doesn't he?" Hawkeye looked down at the lit cigar in his hand. "Huh, maybe I shouldn't be smoking _these_." But instead of stubbing the cigar out on the block, Hawkeye laid it gingerly across the rim of an unused beaker.

Al stood up slowly. "Flagg?" He scratched his chin in thought. "Wait a minute, you're not talking about Colonel _Sam_ Flagg, that nozzle with the CIA who likes to play dress-up?"

"A nozzle by any other name couldn't spew as much sewage as the colonel," said Hawkeye, raising his glass in mock toast. "You know him?"

Al grimaced, recalling his own experiences with the arrogant officer. "I had a few tangles with him back in--" he stopped before he could say Vietnam. Hawkeye appeared to believe he was still in 1952, so Al responded instead, "uh, in the Navy."

Hawkeye nodded. "So he _does_ go both ways."

"Terrific, and now he's over there, too. I better get to Sam before they find each other." Al muttered to himself as he hastily took his leave. To Hawkeye he said, "I'll be back in a little while."

"Okay, but remember, to get back in here, the admission price is two nurses," Hawkeye called as the doors behind Al's retreating figure slid shut. Then, after checking the Waiting Room for any obvious surveillance cameras, he lifted his cigar from its resting place and resumed smoking.  
  
  


### * * *

When Sam regained consciousness for the second time, he felt cool glass pressed up against his sore left cheek. He opened his right eye to see that he was lying under a blanket in yet another cot in a private tent, wrapped in a wine-colored terry cloth robe and little else. B.J. was sitting beside him in an old barber's chair, using a filled martini glass on Sam to keep down the swelling.

"Laughter may be the best medicine, but I figured you'd want this more," B.J. joked as Sam managed to sit up and take the glass in his own hand. Thinking it was water, Sam took a deep drink, nearly choking as the alcohol burned his throat.

Instead of swallowing, Sam spat out the vodka, spraying a young man who had just entered the tent. As Sam's vision sharpened, he noticed the man--a boy, actually--was quite short, with tufts of light brown hair sticking out from a knit cap. He was also wearing round-rimmed glasses that made him look like he was twelve and clutching a clipboard close to his chest as if it were his only armor against the war. The young man recoiled at the stench of misty vodka around him.

"Oh, I'm sorry..." Sam looked for a name tag on his uniform, and, finding none, checked the boy's stripes, "...uh, Corporal."

The young man stared at Sam, crestfallen. "That's okay, sir," came a quiet reply. "I was just checking to see if you were okay."

B.J. took the glass from Sam's hand. "Apparently he isn't," he said. "Margaret must have dislodged some of your brain, Hawk. You're spitting out martinis and addressing people by rank. It's like you're a different person."

_No kidding_, Sam thought, but he said nothing to either gentlemen as he struggled out of his cot to get a better look at his--or rather, Hawkeye's--quarters. He noticed a second cot next to his and a third on the far side of the tent. An array of connected tubing, beakers, and other glassware sat between his cot and the second--Sam guessed that one cot belonged to B.J., and the third probably to someone with stricter moral values, judging from the dog-eared King James Bible that lay on the neat, tightened blanket.

B.J. refilled his own glass and motioned to the young man. "Uh, Radar, perhaps we should get Potter over here to check out our friend." When Sam wasn't looking, B.J. mouthed the word 'now', prompting the young corporal to exit the tent in a hurry.

"That's not necessary, B.J., I'll be fine," Sam said he gingerly touched the left side of his face, wincing as the pain increased. He turned to the unusual glass contraption before him--clear liquid dripped from one end into a large container. _A still, they have a still in their tent. Terrific. _

"Can I get you anything, Hawk?"

"I could use some water ," Sam groaned. As B.J. stood to retrieve a water pitcher an oil barrel that doubled as a table Sam noticed a small frame containing a picture of a baby girl sitting next to it. "That one mine or yours?" he asked, indicating the picture.

"Well, I certainly hope she's mine, otherwise my wife will have a lot of explaining to do when I get back to California," B.J. chuckled. He expression then sobered. "Seriously, you don't even remember my daughter Erin? What else do you not remember?"

Before Sam could respond the door opened again and the gray-haired colonel entered, followed by Radar. Slowly bits of Hawkeye Pierce's memories mingled with Sam's own. _Colonel Henry Blake? No, wait, I think he's dead. This would be Colonel Sherman Potter..._

"That's quite a shiner you have there, son," Potter began, appraising Sam's bruised face as he would with any of the other patients coming into the camp. "I don't what you said to Major Houlihan to cause her to use you like a punching bag, but it appears she's just warming up. As if I didn't already have a war to contend with..."

Sam sipped from the cup B.J. had given him. "I wish I could remember what I said. Right now I'm not worth much of anything."

"And from the looks of that eye, it'll be a while before you can go back to work," B.J. added. "Damnit, we can't afford to lose a surgeon either."

Colonel Potter removed a pile of dirty laundry that covered a wooden crate and took a seat. "It's not so much what you said _today_, Pierce, it's more of a combination of things. The snide remarks, the practical jokes...this stunt today was just the last straw for Margaret, hence the black and blue face I see before me."

Sam touched his face again and wished for a mirror, not just to see the real Hawkeye Pierce but also the extent of the damage to his face. Slowly more memories of Hawkeye's seeped into his own mind...Hawkeye running a brassiere up the camp flagpole as a curly-haired doctor buzzed "Taps" on a plastic kazoo, Hawkeye rigging Major Houlihan's tent so the flaps would fall off when she slammed the door, Hawkeye slipping toothpaste in Margaret's mashed potatoes when she wasn't looking... 

He touched his eye again. _From what I know now, I'd say this Hawkeye deserved this._

Suddenly the Door opened in the area near the third cot, and Al stepped out behind Colonel Potter. "Sam, what the hell happened?"

Sam watched as his hologram companion entered the scene, forgetting for a second that only he could see Al. "Al? That you?"

B.J. looked around the tent. "Who's Al? Hawk, are your gears working right?" To the colonel he said, "See this? It's gonna be _weeks_ before he'll able to perform surgery, and we're swamped as it is. I think we should consider filing a report against Margaret."

Sam swooned in pain while Al tut-tutted and pressed a button on his handlink. "Won't do any good, Sam. She's about to beat you to it."

What words Colonel Potter had planned to say were stifled by a booming announcement over the camp's P.A. system. "Attention! New wounded arriving by jeep and ambulance! All surgeons report immediately to OR!" boomed a static male voice.

"Terrific," Potter muttered. "Pierce, you lie down and get some rest, you're officially on sick leave. Take the ice out of your cocktails and put it on your eye. We'll handle this other situation later."

As B.J. exited the tent, Potter asked Radar to lower the flaps on the outside so Sam could have some privacy. Radar complied and took one last look at Sam before following the others to surgery.

"That's some black eye you got there, Sam." Al said. "Ziggy says she's not sure when that will heal."

Sam was not listening. He lifted his head to make sure he was alone. "Radar...O'Reilly, right?"

"His real name is Walter, but he's been going by that nickname since he got here, probably because he's the camp clerk, handling the dispatch and all that," Al explained. "Hawkeye is sort of an idol to him, like Superman. I imagine it's pretty upsetting to him, seeing you like this." The handlink mewed like a newborn kitten. 

"Speaking of which," Sam carefully hoisted himself out of the cot and, noticing a small mirror hanging from a nail on the center post of the tent, took a first look at Captain Hawkeye Pierce. Apparently, Colonel Potter was correct, the skin around his left eye was bruised and swollen like a prizefighter's after a five-round bout. Several blood vessels had also burst, causing most of the white in his eye to be stained red.

"Hey, listen to this," Al said. "Ziggy says Radar will be going home soon. That's great, a kid like that's too young to be exposed to war. What a mess."

"I wish _I_ were going home, too."

"Well, according to Ziggy, your job is to make sure that doesn't happen to Benjamin Pierce--everybody calls you 'Hawkeye," but you've probably figured that out." The hologram walked through the oil barrel/table as Sam crawled back into Hawkeye's cot. "I have some good news, for what it's worth. For once Ziggy has managed to get all the info you need for this Leap."

Sam closed his eyes. What he wouldn't give for the drugs that were probably being pumped into the wounded soldiers in the OR tent. "You talk, I'll try to recover," he said. "I don't recall much, except there's a woman named Margaret out to get me and there's a man in drag running around the camp."

"That would be Corporal Max Klink. No," Al slapped the handlink. "Klinger. He's trying to get a Section 8 discharge, but Ziggy says he's here for the long haul. The irony is, once the war's over he actually _chooses_ to stay in Korea and--"

Sam sat up. "Korea!" he interrupted. "I thought this was the _Vietnam_ War. What year is it?"

"July 23, 1952. Is that a problem?"

"Well, if you consider that I was not born until 1953 and that the July date is way before my actual conception, I'd say yes, that is a problem. Why have I leapt out of my own lifetime?"

Al looked down at his handlink as Ziggy downloaded to him a logical explanation for the Leap; however, it was not an answer Al could explain to Sam. 1952 may have been before Sam's time, but it was not before Al's, and the message relayed from Ziggy revealed the eighty percent possibility that some of Al's neurons had remained with Sam after one particular Leap where he and Sam had traded places. Hence a leap into 1952 would therefore be plausible. Sam had no memory of his Leap home to the Project and to his wife, though, and Al was sworn to keep quiet for fear of upsetting Sam.

Sam, meanwhile, was expecting an answer, so Al responded, "I don't know. I can ask Ziggy, but wouldn't you rather know what you have to do here?"

Sam did not look to Al to appear wholly satisfied with his answer, but Sam lay his head back and motioned Al to continue.

"Original history has one Major Margaret Houlihan, AKA Hot Lips," Al smirked, curious as how one earned a nickname such as that, "filing charges against Hawkeye Pierce and B.J. Hunnicut--your roommate--on the grounds of insubordination and being unfit to serve in the M*A*S*H. She has a lot of pull in the Army, too, and manages to get you both court-martialed and sent home. Ziggy says there's a seventy-eight percent chance that you're here to prevent that."

"Why would I want to prevent that?" asked Sam. "Everybody here seems to want to go home. I assume B.J. would rather spend his days with his wife and daughter than up to his neck in mosquitoes and bloody soldiers."

"He does, actually, but there's more. Houlihan doesn't stop with the dishonorable discharges, she's makes sure both of your medical licenses are revoked. You get to go home, fine, but neither B.J. nor Hawkeye can practice medicine again."

Al walked around to the other side of the cot so that only half his body appeared inside the tent. "B.J. can't find work and ends up going through manic depression. His wife leaves him and takes the girl. Hawkeye's life isn't much better, and it gets worse when his father dies. As for the M*A*S*H unit, the death rate rises dramatically once these two guys leave. Some nozzle named Frank Burns--who's your other roommate, by the way--is named chief surgeon by default and botches several surgeries that either Hawk or B.J. could have done successfully."

"Sam, we can't let this happen," Al continued, his voice high-pitched and excited. "Think of all the lives these men could save, here and back home, if they could still practice. Ziggy predicts if we pull this off the 4077th unit could have the highest success rate in Korea!"

Sam sighed. "Okay, there's just one problem."

"What?"

Sam pointed to his bad eye. "Margaret gave me this. How am I supposed to convince her to drop the charges?"

"Ewww," Al gritted his teeth. "This is going to be fun."

"Any suggestions?" Sam noticed Al about to speak and quickly held up his hand. "Aside from your usual repertoire. I'm certain Margaret Houlihan would just as soon run naked along the front lines than sleep with Hawkeye Pierce."

"Yeah, well, speaking to the man himself, this Burns case already has that job."

"How long before the report is filed?"

Al told him two days, and Sam replied. "Well, everybody is in surgery now, and I don't know how long they'll be there. I'm not even sure if Margaret wrote the report yet."

Al punched up more information on his handlink. "Hey, Margaret's the head nurse, so she's bound to be stuck in surgery, too. Hey, Gooshie," Al called above his head. "point out Major Houlihan's tent." To Sam he continued, "She bunks alone, and there's no record that the report's been sent yet, so it might still be in her tent, if she wrote it."

Sam sat up in the cot. "It's worth a look. Give me five minutes to get dressed and I'll meet you outside her tent."

"Better make it ten."

"Why?"

"Hawkeye's been telling me about some of the nurses here, and I just thought I'd do a little, uh, _medical_ research. Ooh, Gooshie tracked some down for me. Center me now!"

"Al, that handlink is for--" but before Sam could chastise his friend any further, Al had already vanished.

### * * *

Al was admiring a pair of black-seamed stockings laying across Margaret Houlihan's cot when Sam, still slightly disoriented, managed to wobble to the major's tent and slip inside unseen.

"I tell you, Sam," Al sighed, reaching out as if to stroke the fine spun silk, "a great pair of gams sheathed with these is still the best aphrodesiac around."

"Well, maybe if you're good, she'll wear them to the court-martial," Sam offered snidely. "Now come on, let's get this over with before I'm caught."

Margaret had left the flaps of her tent down, and Sam lifted the shade from the door window and peered outside nervously. The camp was deathly quiet; everybody was either in surgery operating on the wounded or tending to other matters. For a moment he felt guilty about not being able to join his colleagues; though the vision in his left eye was still fuzzy, it did not mean he was entirely useless. He could still give blood if needed and help with sterilizing tools.

"Coast is clear," Sam muttered. "Can't say how long we have before surgery lets out, though."

"Ziggy says there were about twenty-five boys shuttled in here," Al shook his head sadly. "It's not right, Sam. These are _boys_. They're supposed to be in college playing football and necking with debutantes, and instead they're slopping around Korea trying not to get blown up."

"Still," Sam rubbed away a sharp pain in his forehead, "I'd feel more comfortable knowing the time frame so I could get out of here before anyone sees me."

"Uh, Sam, speaking of nosey people," Al faltered and faded into silence, prompted only by the squealing handlink to continue. "Alright, Ziggy," he continued to the space above his head. "Sam, remember way back before the first Leap when we were having trouble getting the project funded, and..."

"Do I?" Sam huffed. "That's one of the few things I _do_ remember. Sitting in that stuffy room while that jerk Flagg chewed me a new...well, you know."

Al winced at this and wondered if he should have just kept quiet.

Sam's anger perked. "He said we couldn't _draw_ a timeline, much less travel bodily through one." He pounded his fist on the doorframe and slowly turned to face his friend. "He's here, isn't he?"

"His father is, in Korea, that is," Al corrected him. "The Flagg you're thinking of--Flagg Junior--isn't born yet in this time. And from personal experience, I can tell you Papa Bear was just as bad."

"Does he figure into Hawkeye's court-martial?"

"Ziggy says there's a thirty-two percent chance Margaret may try to contact him. Hawkeye told me too that Flagg Senior is just dying to pin him down as a traitor."

Sam sighed. "Terrific. Instead of just trying to keep Pierce's medical license intact, I may have to save him from being hanged for treason." He threw up his hands. "Why I can't just Leap in, accomplish the mission with one lousy action, and leave? Why does every Leap have to have so many subplots?"

Al shook his head, unable to answer until a button flashing wildly on the handlink caught his attention. "Hey, Sam," Al said. "I have an idea. I'll have Gooshie center me on the O.R. so I can keep an eye out for Margaret. You check her place, and if it looks like she's coming back here, I'll pop back in and warn you."

"Sounds goo-" Sam started, but before he could finish his sentence, Al had already disappeared.

"-od. Why don't you do that?" Sam asked to the air in front of him. Sighing, he hobbled over to Margaret's desk and rifled through a short stack of papers pinned underneath the clasp of a clipboard. He thumbed through legal pads and manila folders stuffed in a box underneath--nothing.

Undismayed, Sam hopped over to Margaret's free-standing wardrobe and checked the pockets of her clothing for folded notes, black carbon copy sheets, receipts, anything to allude to the possibility that a complaint was filed. He was fingering a red silk kimono when he happened to notice a folded sheet of beige stationary papers tucked in the beltloop of the gown.

"A note, perhaps? Forerunner to a Post-It?" Sam turned the wrinkled rectangle over in his palm before deciding to open it. The paper was folded into quarters, and Sam had nearly opened the note when he heard a hissing male voice coming from behind the tent.

_Al, where are you?_ Sam panicked. Had surgery already let out? That couldn't be.

Footsteps crunched around in the dirt outside the tent. Sam eyed the inside the wardrobe and, judging it too small to house him, turned around and dove underneath Margaret's cot. The footsteps quickened until they reached the door and stopped, no doubt cautiously appraising the area, Sam thought. From his hiding place, Sam watched as Margaret's door creaked open and a dusty boot poked through the opening.

Sam swallowed, trying hard not to give himself away to whoever was breaking into the tent. _Oh, boy_.

### * * *

A soft, melancholy trombone crackled through the O.R. speaker as nurses and surgeons, covered nearly head to toe in white scrubs, milled about the prone G.I.s that lay on the hospital beds. Al wandered in between stations, passing bodily through people, surgical trays and gas tanks, appraising each masked nurse, searching for Margaret's piercing eyes.

All around him lay carnage, the aftermath of an intense attempt to free a nation of people from the threat of Communism. Men--not yet men, Al thought, _children_!--with broken legs, broken arms, broken spirits, most of them already unconciousness when they were brought in, lay helpless while skilled hands worked quickly to repair the damage done to their bodies. Their souls, however, would need more than gauze and stitches.

"Hang in there, guys," Al told the wounded. "These are the best doctors in Korea, they'll patch you up." Sure, Al nodded. Slap a few Band-Aids on them and send them back out to the front, where hopefully they won't come back with even more problems.

The music swelled, then suddenly faded into static, followed by a heavily-accented female voice. "This is Sweet Seoul Sue, here to take you to morning, with a special message going out to M*A*S*H 4077th...go home."

Al shook his head. Damn propaganda. Sweet Seoul Sue, Tokyo Rose...they were all the same. They had nothing better to do than spout sugar-coated hate.

"Why bother with us? You need to be with your wives back in America," the sing-song voice continued over a soft piano. "Who knows what they must be doing tonight...lonely and needing a man at night to protect them. There are still many men back home who would love to romance a pretty lady--"

One of the androgynous white figures--this one more distinguished with glasses and a large crucifix hanging from his neck--turned from the patient he was comforting. "That's not true! Don't believe a word of it!" Al checked the data on his handlink--this was Father Mulcahy, camp chaplain.

Colonel Potter, up to his wrists in a soldier's blood, carefully stitched closed a wound on his patient's stomach. "Don't worry yourself, Padre." He sounded quite gruff. "It just goes in one ear and out the other with me."

"If it bothers you that much, Father, you can have the radio turned to another station, or just shut it off," B.J. offered as a nurse sponged his forehead.

"With pleasure!" With that, the priest stormed out of surgery, and minutes later there was some squealing as Mulcahy dialed for another station. Finding none, silence followed, save for the activity on the floor. Al continued to search each nurse's face, finding sparkling eyes of all colors staring wearily into post-adolescent intestines and exposed ribs, but no glimpse of fiery Margaret Houlihan. That is, not until Al inspected Major Burns's station, where the head nurse stood like a faithful spouse.

She wobbled back and forth on her feet, clutching a scalpel Frank had asked her to replace. When the replacement did not make it into his waiting hand, Frank turned to her. "Major, are you all right?" 

Margaret blinked and yawned through her surgical mask. "I'm fine, Major. I'm just a bit stressed from previous events, but I'll be okay. I'm just not used to OR being so quiet."

"Well," Frank huffed. "That's because we don't have Captain Pierce wisecracking in here."

B.J., eavesdropping on the conversation, looked up from his own patchwork. "Hey, you lay off Hawkeye. He's the best wisecracker and chest cracker in the whole Army. He's the only guy I know who crack a chest and a wise at the same time in under ten minutes. _Without_ spilling blood."

Frank bristled, he eyes widened with anger. "Are you implying, _Captain_, through that tone of voice that my surgical methods are inferior?"

"Very good, Frank. When this is over, we'll take you to the toilet and you can tell me what that does."

"Peace!" shouted Potter. "May I remind you that this is a hospital and not a kindergarten?" He turned around to face Frank and Margaret. "Major, you concentrate on your patient. It's my job to take care of Pierce, you're not CO yet."

Frank sputtered an mild expletive and resumed working on his patient in silence.

"Houlihan, you really do look like death warmed over," Potter said. "You sure you can hold up? We've got a waiting list to get in here a mile long."

Margaret wheezed. "Y-yes...Colonel." Her eyelids drooped and her swaying became more exaggerated. 

"You're lying," Potter replied sternly. "All this hoo-hah with Pierce has got you exhausted, and you're worthless to us if you can't stand straight."

Al inched closer to Margaret, worried. He knew what was coming next.

Potter turned back to his patient. "Go back to your tent and get some rest. Ginger will cover for you." At that, a black nurse eased herself from B.J.'s station and glided over next to Frank Burns.

Margaret, too weak to argue, capitulated. "If you insist, Colonel. I just feel bad about leaving when we're short on hands--"

"If you hadn't knocked Hawkeye six ways to Sunday, we wouldn't _be_ short," B.J. muttered under his breath. Only the nurse by his side heard him, and she responded with a warning look.

Al watched with panic as Margaret took her leave. "Oh, Sam, I hope you're out of there," he mumbled. He raised his eyes to the ceiling. "Gooshie, center me on Sam, _now_!"

### * * *

Corporal Max Klinger, resplendent in a flowing short-sleeved peach chiffon gown with matching broad-rimmed hat, silver pumps, and clip-on faux diamond earrings, slinked around telephone poles and ducked behind stray oil barrels, jumping from landmark to landmark in an attempt not to be seen. Most of the doctors and nurses at the 4077th had become accustomed to Klinger's outrageous attire and even more outrageous Section 8 schemes; therefore, seeing him bounce around camp like this was old hat. Only Klinger in regulation uniform would have aroused any suspicions.

He stopped behind Margaret Houlihan's tent and slipped on a pair of sunglasses produced from the beaded purse slung around his shoulder. Radar was there waiting for him.

"Isn't that a bit formal for the afternoon?" Radar stared at Klinger's nearly sheer gown, perplexed.

"It's my best summer outfit, and besides, my bikini wax still hasn't come in from Tokyo, so I can't wear--"

Radar, close to nauseous, waved him silent. "I don't wanna know. You got the camera?"

Klinger again dipped into his purse and brought forth a camera the size of a cigarette case. "I'll get this back, right?"

"Just as soon as I get the film to Captain Pierce."

Klinger nodded. "Good. I had to eat twelve boxes of Rice Krispies to get that particular piece of spy equipment. Another six for the binoculars."

"That's a lot of Rice Krispies," Radar mused.

"No kidding. I snap, crackle and pop in my sleep."

Radar looked past Klinger to see an exhausted Margaret, her hands pressing against her temples, emerge from OR. "Ooh, there she is. You know the plan, right?"

"I distract Houlihan so you can get inside her tent. After that, I ain't seen ya," Klinger smiled. It wasn't much of a plan, but considering how pressed for time they were, it was the best they could do. "You think we should synchronize our watches or something?"

"No time for that. Go!" Radar tiptoed around Margaret's tent, grimacing as each step crunched into the ground and slipped inside. Klinger, his feet aching from walking in women's shoes, skipped lightly over to Margaret and began an animated conversation.

"Major, you're looking especially radient this fine afternoon--"

Margaret lurched violently away from the corporal. "Not now, freak! Can't you see I'm not well?"

Klinger scratched his rough chin with a gloved hand. "Oh, I see. Your phase of the moon. Hurts like hell, I know."

A murderous look glazed Margaret's face, her face boiling with anger. "How dare you speak to superior officer like that. You--" She reached to slug Klinger, but he sprang back like a frightened deer and took off running toward the mess tent, his heels leaving perfect square imprints in the dirt. Hopefully Radar had found ample time to find a decent hiding place in the interim.

Radar had indeed found a spot, only it was already occupied.

"Captain Pierce!" he exclaimed, astonished. "What are you doing here?"

"Hunting dustbunnies for stew, what did you expect?" Sam hissed back, then frowned. Hawkeye was getting stronger inside him, and Sam wondered if he would soon lose complete control of his thoughts and words.

Radar slid under the cot feet first and reached behind Sam to lift the bottom of the tent. "With all due respect, Sir, you need to be in bed, and Major Houlihan is on her way here."

At that moment Al materialized in the middle of the tent. "Sam! Get out of here, she's...Sam?" Nobody answered him, and Al checked his handlink. "Hmmm, Gooshie _swears_ you're here."

Al poked his head through Margaret's wardrobe and, not finding Sam, scanned the rest of the tent interior until coming to the cot, where he found both Sam and Rader cowering.

"Sam, you better take Radar's back door," Al suggested. "Ziggy says there's a sixty-percent chance Margaret will catch you and speed up your exit."

Sam motioned with his head to Radar, as if to ask, "What about him?"

"He's short. He'll be fine. I'll stay here and watch him if you want."

A lot of good that would do, Sam thought, seeing as how Al would not be able to help should Radar's cover be blown. To the corporal he whispered, "Come with me now." He started shimmying underneath the tent.

"I have to do this first, Sir. I won't let you be kicked out of the Army."

"Sam," Al urged. The door to the tent opened, and Margaret, unoblivious to the activity before her, threw open her wardrobe and selected a terry-cloth robe.

"Damn that Pierce," she sneered, grabbing a towel from the top shelf. Sam, meanwhile, was two-thirds the way out of the tent. He had wanted badly to convince Radar to reconsider staying but did not want to arouse suspicion. Radar shooed him completely out of the tent and lay flat under the cot, the spy camera poised in his hands.

Al met Sam outside the tent. "I'd suggest a shower, Sam, but I think that's where Margaret's going. She's getting out her bath stuff." He followed Sam several feet toward the Swamp before Sam spoke again. 'I don't like leaving Radar in there," he whispered, still unsure if Margaret could hear him. "She'll tear him apart!"

"He's fine," Al assured him. "_You_, on the other hand, aren't."

The handlink chirped a warning. "Sam, Major Burns just left OR, and Gooshie says he's headed in this direction. You need to get back to Hawkeye's tent. This nozzle's very suspicious."

Sam, filthy from crawling on the ground, brushed stray twigs and leaves from his uniform. The perspiration stains underneath his arms soaked in some of the dirt and made him smell even worse. "I could use a nap," he agreed.

"Yeah, and that eye isn't going to get any better staring into the sun. Let's go." Al pointed Sam toward the Swamp and saw him into bed before B.J. returned. They would find another way to intercept Margaret's complaint.

### * * *

Refreshed after a lengthy shower, Margaret sat at her desk, wrapped in her robe and typing vigorously. Each key clacking against the scrolled paper in her typewriter sharpened the smirk on her face--there was no way in Hades that Captain Pierce was going to worm his way out of this complaint. She would have him busted down to corporal...no, _private_...and scrubbing toilets at Fort Dix within the month.

Radar, still frozen in a prone position, fought to stay awake, upset that none of the thriller story digests he read in his spare time emphasized that spy work had many boring moments. Had he known, he would have asked Klinger to lie in wait with the camera while he took the easy tasks.

As he squirmed for comfort he heard the loud, whining voice of Major Frank Burns increasing in volume. "How the hell do _I_ know where Radar is?" he heard Frank holler just outside the tent. Margaret too heard and felt around her desk for her compact.

"Well, did you try the wooded area behind the mess tent? Isn't that where he feeds those furry animals with _our_ food?" Frank asked, his hand grasping the knob of Margaret's door. Not satisfied with the response from the other end of the conversation, Frank bellowed, "Look, I don't have time for this. Go check the mess and leave me alone."

Margaret was still primping when Frank's voice softened and crept through the borders of her tent. A soft rap against the door shook the frame. "Major Houlihan? I've come to check on your condition."

"You may enter, Major," Margaret replied loudly, just in case there were any passersby in the area. She ushered Frank quickly inside, and immediately threw her arms around his neck when the door slammed shut.

"Oh, darling," she whispered, then planted a firm kiss on her lover.

They remained in a tight embrace for several minutes, unaware of the world around them and the noises of the war, including the quiet clicking sound of Klinger's spy camera as Radar recorded their liason.  
  


### * * *

Dr. Beeks strode quickly along the corridor leading to her private quarters, nonchalantly passing the shut door of the Waiting Room, not bothering to warrant a slight glance in that direction. She had not been inside the Waiting Room since Captain Pierce arrived, preferring to leave all medical duties to one of her able male interns. Al had begged her to reconsider her position--1952 was a much different time for the two sexes, he explained, and certain actions a woman of the present would deem offensive might not have been so for a young nurse living in a world set fifty years in the past.

But Verbena stood firm--that did not excuse his behavior, and she was not going back in there until Hawkeye left. Let Tina administer the shots and check the captain's pulse, she said, smiling broadly when Al decided against that suggestion.

Tina, apparently, gave little credence to Al's authority, for Verbena was nearly to the end of the corridor when the Waiting Room door opened and the aforementioned curvaceous doctor bounced through the threshhold. 

Tina wobbled on her spiked high heels and grasped the doorframe for support. "You are such a brute!" she giggled amidst male laughter. Wiggling her finger in a dainty goodbye gesture, the door slid shut and Tina began her way down the corridor toward Dr. Beeks. Verbena could only look on in amazement--Tina had been drinking, on duty! She had dined with her fellow colleague on numerous occasions and never so much saw Tina sip a glass of watered-down wine! What kind of man _was_ this that Admiral Calavicci would defend him?

"So," Verbena began when Tina finally lurched to the end of the corridor. "How is Dr. Fingers these days?"

"Oh, he's an absolute dream, he's so much like my Al," Tina squealed, her voice breathy and slurred. "It's just so weird talking to him when his body is really Dr. Beckett's."

Verbena nodded. "I don't condemn fraternizing with the patients, so long as they are kept calm. Just so you know, Tina" she leaned in closer and winced at the smell of vodka on Tina's breath, "that talking is the _only_ activity involving Dr. Beckett's body that is allowed here, especially when Dr. Elesee is on the premises."

Tina stiffened at the mention of Sam's wife. "Oh, Verbena, you know me better than that, I would never--"

"Would you also never drink on the job?"

"I only had one lousy martini, and I was about to take my break and sober up," Tina insisted. "And Hawkeye wanted a favor, too..."

Verbena shook her head. "You can tell Captain Pierce to keep it in his pants, because I'm not giving him any--"

"Not _that_!" Tina slapped Verbena playfully on the shoulder. "He wants something to eat, but nothing in the cafeteria appealed to him, so I was going to order out for all of us. You know," Tina paused, "he wants you to know that he's very sorry for the way he acted earlier. He said he was not aware that you were married."

"But I'm not married at all!"

Tina giggled. "Yeah, well, he doesn't have to know that, and you'll be able to do your job without being made uncomfortable."

"Plus," Tina added, "you can have dinner with us. We're going to have a real picnic!"

Verbena's usually stern countenance softened. "Oh. Well, I haven't eaten in a while myself, and I suppose Sammy Jo would be willing to chip in as well."

Tina's hopes rose with her voice. "Do you like spareribs and coleslaw?"

"Sure, but I don't know of any barbecue restaurants in the area."

Tina pointed a finger upward. "Watch and listen. Ziggy," she called to the ceiling. "Can you pull up the number of an Adam's Ribs in Chicago, Illinois?" To Verbena she explained, "Hawkeye says they've got best ribs and sauce in the country!"

"Chicago? For ribs? Who's going to pay to have food shipped from there to New Mexico?"

Tina shrugged. "The government. We'll just do a little creative bookkeeping, is all. Remember they still owe us big time to keep the Project afloat."

"Not to mention all the comp time I've spent working holidays," Verbena murmured.

There was silence for a moment as Ziggy processed Tina's request. "Dr. Martinez, I show no record of an Adam's Ribs in Chicago, or anywhere else in the United States."

Tina's eyes widened. "Are you sure, Ziggy? Check again."

"Uh, Tina," Verbena said, "Captain Pierce is likely talking about a restaurant that existed in 1952. There's a good chance Adam's Ribs is no longer open."

"That is correct, Dr. Beeks," Ziggy interrupted. "My records show a restaurant using the moniker Adam's Ribs _did _ exist in the 1950s; however, that building and those surrounding it were demolished ten years ago and replaced with an AMC Multiplex theatre."

"Darn it all!" Tina stamped her foot. "All he talked about was ribs and coleslaw, and that's all I want to eat."

"If I may suggest, doctor," Ziggy's mellow voice intoned, "there is a Tony Roma's restaurant in Santa Fe. I could send an order via facsimile and have dinner sent Federal Express within two hours."

Tina sighed. "Well, if that's our best bet. What if Hawkeye knows they're not from Adam's Ribs, though?"

Verbena patted Tina on the shoulder. "Don't worry, if he knows he's having dinner with you, me, and Sammy Jo, he isn't going to care if he's eating shoe leather."

"So you _will_ be joining us?" Tina's eyes brightened.

"Yes, I will," Verbena spoke carefully. "If his hands are busy with beef ribs, I'll know he won't be able to touch mine."

### * * *

"'Preserve me, oh God, for in thee do I put my trust.'"

Sam moved his head slightly, letting the gentle voice creep into his mind and slowly wake him. He was not aware of how long he had slept. All he did know was that he was apparently more tired than he thought--the hazy afternoon sky had darkened dramatically into sticky night, and the interior of the tent appeared much dimmer than it was when he crawled into Hawkeye's cot.

He opened his eyes to see Father Mulcahy, clad in a sweat-stained Loyola t-shirt and wrinkled olive pants, perched on a low stool beside his cot, face down in a Bible. In the background, B.J. reclined on his own cot, intently scribbling on a white tablet.

"'Oh, my soul, thou hast said unto the Lord, 'Thou art my Lord, my goodness extendeth not to thee...'" Mulcahy continued with the sixteenth Psalm.

"Ummm," Sam moaned. He hoped the good priest, in reading Scripture at his cot, did not think Hawkeye was close to death. He listened as Father Mulcahy droned softly through the Psalm, curious as to how long he had been sitting there.

"'I will bless the Lord, who hath given me counsel, my reins also instruct me in the night seasons...'" Sam lifted his head, shielding his eyes from the bright lone bulb hanging from the tent ceiling. "'I have set the Lord always before me, because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved,'" he finished in unison with Mulcahy, who could only close his Book and stare stunned at Sam. B.J., who had appeared occupied with his writing, also sat up.

Sam, however, continued his recitation. "'Therefore my heart is glad, amd my glory rejoiceth, my flesh also shall rest in hope. For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou wilt shew me the path of life, in thy presence is fullness of joy, at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.'"

"Hawkeye, I am impressed!" said Mulcahy. "I had no idea how well-versed you were in the Word of God."

Sam shrugged. How many times had his mother incanted to him that same verse on Sunday evenings? Enough to make him miss _Lassie_, he remembered. "I guess some things never leave you. I must have picked that one up from my dad when he read Bible to me."

B.J. furrowed his brows. "I thought you said the only book your father read was _The Last of the Mohicans_."

"Uh, well, he never read the Bible straight through. I mean who does?" Then, looking at Mulcahy, quickly added, "That's not to say that we _shouldn't_ read the Bible straight through--"

Father Mulcahy held up a hand. "I understand what you're trying to say, Hawkeye. In fact, you've just given me a great idea for my next sermon, and if you don't mind, I'd like to take my leave and get started while the idea is still fresh." He stood to leave and B.J. rose also to get the door.

"Don't mind us, Father, and thanks for stopping by," B.J. said as the priest made a quick blessing gesture and exited the tent.

The second Mulcahy left, the Door slid open and Al, now wearing a maroon suit with matching tie and a sunflower yellow shirt, entered the scene. His expression was grim. "Sam, we got trouble big time."

B.J. folded his arms and leaned against the doorframe. "Poor guy, he thought you were worse off than you really are. I told him you'd only be out of commission for a few weeks, but he insisted he come. He's even considering a special service for your recovery."

Sam swung his legs to the floor and noticed that somebody had removed his pants--he sat in a pair of white boxer shorts. "I don't mind. A little prayer never hurt anybody."

B.J. loped back to his cot. "Sometimes I wonder if it _helps_ anybody. If it did, I'd be back home with Peg and Erin."

Al burst through the foot of Sam's cot and leaned over him. "Sam, that's why I'm here. Margaret's written the report and it's sitting on Radar's desk to be sent out!"

Sam's face paled, but Al added. "Don't worry. You got 'til tomorrow morning. Nobody in the camp seems to know where Radar is right now, but he's in--"

Al was interrupted by a gruff voice coming from the outside of the tent. "Pierce, Hunicutt! Are you decent?" B.J. yelled that they were, and Colonel Potter swaggered inside.

"Hm, he's not here. Either of you boys seen Radar? He's been missing since this afternoon."

"Uh, no," Sam lied. "I've been here all this time."

"We've checked all of his usual hideouts, and he isn't anywhere to be found." Potter paced the path separating Hawkeye's cot from Major Burns's. "Where in the name of Sweet Fannie's corset could he have run off to?"

"Have you checked Rosie's?" asked B.J. "Or maybe the mess tent? Sometimes Igor gives him scraps for the animals." Potter replied that he had, and neither Rosie nor Igor had seen the company clerk.

Al studied his handlink. "Don't tell the colonel, Sam, but Radar's in the nearby Korean village." The handlink whirred and buzzed. "Ooh, Sam! You need to get Potter out of here now."

Sam shook his head absently, wishing he could ask Al for suggestions on how to perform that task, short of grabbing the unit's commanding officer by his pants and flinging him out the door. Instead, Sam let out an exaggerated yawn, hoping Potter would get the idea.

"Oh, Pierce, I'm sorry. You need your rest." Potter turned to B.J. "If you see Radar, you'll tell him we've turned the whole camp inside out looking for him? I just hope to God he didn't trod on a stray mine."

B.J. saw the colonel outside, remarking as the two left, "We'd have heard an explosion if that happened."

Sam waited until the door shut and hissed quietly, "Al, what is going on. Where is that letter?"

"It's on Radar's--" Al stopped when he realized he too was whispering. "Why am _I_ whispering? Nobody else can hear me talk?"

Sam, already agitated, motioned Al to hurry with his news. "Anyway, Radar managed to sneak out of the tent without Margaret or Frank knowing," Al continued. "She finished the letter and placed it herself on Radar's desk. Now, Ziggy says the mail courier isn't expected until oh-eight hundred hours tomorrow, so all you have to do is intercept the letter."

"Radar's office is where?"

"Same building as Potter's. Radar has to stay by the phone in case of late-night casualities."

Sam leaned over his cot and grabbed Hawkeye's robe. "Well, I'll just tell B.J. I'm going to take a shower, and make a, shall we say, unexpected detour on the way." As he slid his thumb underneath the band of his shorts, he felt a sharp corner of paper. "Huh? What's this?"

He pulled out the note he had taken from Margaret's tent. "I must've shoved this into my pants when I heard Radar coming," he explained to Al.

"What's that about Radar?" This came from B.J., now reentering the tent. He saw the note and leaned in through Al, who unconciously moved out of the way, for a closer look. "That looks like Margaret's chicken scratch. Another threat?"

Sam carefully unfolded the note. "Uh, no. I found it...outside on the ground." He moved his lips quietly to the written words in the letter until B.J. unable to read upside down print, asked Sam to recite louder.

"'My darling Frank,'" he began, prompting nauseous looks from the doctor and the hologram. "'How lonely and cold my simple cot feels at night when you are not here to hold me in your strong arms---'"

"Oh, puh-leeze!" cried Al, on the verge of gagging.

B.J. waved Sam silent. "I've heard enough. Soon she'll start on Frank's rippled chest muscles and I'd rather not lose my dinner, mediocre though it was. I'm sure it tastes better going down than coming back up."

Sam laid the wrinkled paper on his cot, studying the gracious loops of Margaret's 'l's and indistinguishable curlicues. A faint aroma of perfume wafted from the note--sweet flowers not found in Korean mud, bottled and sold in the black markets of Tokyo, he decided. A sweet smell for a strong woman, a woman who clearly could not be moved to compassion for two colleagues, despite the fact that many, many lives hinged on the one letter sitting on Radar's desk.

B.J., meanwhile, sank back into his cot, his letter home in one hand and a snapshot of his family in the other, wondering how he could hold both and manage to have a drink. He needed one badly, quiet nights were especially rough when there were no casualities to keep the mind busy. He sat there with Sam, listening to foreign crickets chirping and buzzing outside their tent, joined by an occasional rustle in the bushes. 

It sounded like a rabbit, or maybe a stray puppy from the nearby village. It looked, however, like Colonel Sam Flagg, covered head to toe in black, a pair of binoculars aimed at the Swamp.

### * * *

"Colonel Potter? Sir?"

Margaret Houlihan had seen the sharp yellow light shining from the window in Potter's office. It was not uncommon for the colonel to spend extra hours hunched over his desk--writing, perhaps a lengthy love letter to his wife or catching up on old requisition forms. Margaret had such a document clutched in her right hand; her left rapped softly on Potter's door.

Quietly she budged the door open and, finding the office empty, let out a loud sigh. People in the camp seemed to be vanishing one by one, she decided. Radar had yet to materialize, and Margaret frowned at her sealed letter still lying untouched on his desk. Now the colonel was gone. It was a wonder that anything got done around the 4077th.

"There wouldn't be any of this nonsense if _Frank_ were CO," she murmured, smiling lightly at the memory of Major Burns's brief stint in command before Potter arrived. Power suited Frank well, she knew, for she had never before seen in him such confidence and decisive action. Even as he strode through camp, his shoulders straight and head held high, he looked important...almost as if he really had a chin.

Two enlisted men were busy loading prone departed soldiers into a long green school bus when Margaret ambled out of the office. "You there, corporal," she beckoned to a tall, pale youth. "Why are making a run so late?"

The boy clicked his heels and saluted. He obviously had not been in Korea long enough to know of the unit's relaxed standards. "Ma'am. We've been running late in our deliveries and making up our time, and if I may say, ma'am, it's a long way to Seoul."

The major's eyes brightened. "You're leaving for Seoul now?"

Another salute. "Ma'am. Yes, ma'am."

"Wait here." Margaret dashed back into the office and retrieved her letter. "Could you deliver this for me once you get there? It is imperative that letter makes it to the general as soon as possible."

The soldier saluted his affirmations and Margaret saw him away with a salute and a wide grin. As she watched the bus wobble out of camp, she waved, wondering how she should style her hair for Captain Pierce's court-martial.

### * * *

Sam, wrapped in Hawkeye's bathrobe and little else, tossed stray papers around Radar's desk like a huge paper salad. B.J. thumbed through a file cabinet drawer, shaking his head in disappointment. "It's not here," Sam moaned.

Al kept watch at the door. "What do you mean? Ziggy says Margaret dropped it off herself, and nobody's been by since."

"Well, maybe the South Korean Letter Fairy took it and is working on converting the postage," Sam snapped back.

B.J. closed the drawer and pulled open the one below it. "Hawk, relax. If it's here we'll find it, but I think we should wait on Radar to get back from wherever."

"You won't have to wait long, he's on his way..." Al faded to silence as his handlink screeched. "Oh, no."

Sam looked up from Radar's desk. "What?"

"I didn't say anything," B.J. replied.

Al's face wrinkled into a frown. "The letter's on its way to Seoul," he answered grimly. "Margaret put the letter on a morgue run, and Ziggy says your chances of court-martial shot up thirty-five percent."

Sam slumped into Radar's chair. So that was it. Hawkeye was going his license, and B.J. his family...quite possibly their lives, too, to alcohol, depression...maybe suicide. Who knows how many soldiers, too, would slip away on operating table due to lack of medical attention...all because of one woman whose couldn't take a joke or two. Sam wondered if Margaret would have to write any letters to the United States, letters to grieving parents explaining how valiantly their sons fought the good battles and didn't so much as whimper as their lives slipped away on cold tables in a foreign country...

"I'm--I'm sorry, Sam," Al was close to tears, "if I had known about this, you know I would have alerted you. It's just sometimes Ziggy can't get the info in fast enough--"

"There has to be another way to counter Margaret's attack," Sam said, not necessarily to Al. "We've got to have some kind of ammunition against her." He twisted in the swivel chair, searching Hawkeye's portion of his Swiss cheese memory for something, any bit of information he could use in a trial to discredit the major.

He stood. "The note."

B.J. turned from the drawer. "What about it?"

"She's having an affair with a married man, in the Army. That note is our proof. We could threaten to report _her_."

B.J. shook his head. "She'll deny it, Hawk. For one, Frank's last name isn't written on the thing, so she could say the note was for Frank Smith of Passaic, New Jersey."

He leaned against the file cabinet. "Or, she could say we forged her handwriting, and she'll have a point. Remember when you used her signature to have all those cases of Kirin shipped to OR as 'medicine.'"

Al verified the trick on his handlink. "He's right, Sam. Wow, what hasn't this Pierce guy done?" 

Sam scratched his stubbly chin. "Well, it can't be that hard to prove an affair. They're almost always together. Maybe if we got some pictures--"

"Like these, sir?" Both captains turned to the door to see the elusive Corporal Radar O'Reilly standing at the door, a thick white envelope in his hand. "I'm not in trouble, am I?"

"Trouble doesn't quite describe it." B.J. folded his arms like a stern older brother. "Radar, where have you been? Potter's nearly turned the camp inside out looking for you."

"Yeah, and the chopper pilots can't see the horizon for the smoke signals he's been sending around the countryside," Sam chided in Hawkeye's voice.

Radar extended the envelope. "I was in the village. There's a man there who develops photos, and I thought you'd need these in case Major Houlihan went through with the court-martial."

Sam took the envelope and studied its contents--twelve black and white snapshots of Margaret and Frank in various stages of passionate embrace, both profiles easily recognized. In authoritative hands, photos like this would certainly mean federal charges against the two clandestine lovers.

"This is what you were doing in Margaret's tent?" Sam passed the photos to B.J.

"Sirs, you're the best surgeons in Korea. I can't let Major Houlihan kick you out of the Army. How could she go through with her complaints if she knew you had evidence like this to hold over her?"

B.J. grinned broadly. "O'Reilly, that apple pie farm boy face of your certainly does mask a deviant soul," he said, and Radar blushed deep red.

"I-I better go find the colonel and tell him to call off the search. Plus I gotta give Klinger back his camera," Radar stammered as he ambled out of the tent.

"We'll be sure to thank him as well," B.J. called after him.

"Yeah, I'll get him those black fishnets he's been wanting," Sam added, waving Radar away, pictures in hand.

Al edged through Radar's desk for a better look at the spy photos. "How do you suppose a geek like that gets a gorgeous broad like Margaret Houlihan," Al wondered aloud over Sam's shoulder. "He's gotta have money."

Sam fanned himself with a fingerprint-smeared snapshot. "So, you think this will even the odds for us?" He looked to B.J. for vigorous approval but was surprised to see the fellow captain looked rather melancholy.

"Beej, why so glum? We got Hot Lips backed in the corner with these photos."

"I know, Hawk," B.J. sighed, toying with a loose medical file, "don't get me wrong, I'm happy there's a chance you won't get court-martialed, but I'll tell you there were time when I thought I should just let myself get booted out."

"What?" Sam ejaculated. "Be forced out the Army in disgrace, maybe lose your medical license and the only means of supporting your family? You'd let Margaret do that to you?"

"I'd get to go home, wouldn't I?" B.J. exploded as his fist came crashing down on Radar's filing cabinet with a loud bang. "I'd get to see my daughter grow up, and walk and talk and laugh. I'd get to read her bedtime stories and actually hold her in my arms as she falls asleep, instead of having to imagine it here while trying to get comfortable on a bug-infested cot in the middle of Hell!"

Sam looked at his friend--Hawkeye Pierce's friend--silently for what seemed to both like a year. He wanted badly to grasp B.J. by his shoulders and tell him how much he sympathized, that he knew an even greater Hell having to stay away from his own home, his own family, who were not miles away but years apart from him. He wanted to tell him that Al, another friend that B.J. would likely never come to know, also sympathized, having lost his true love to a vicious Oriental war. How could he say anything, though, to a man who only saw an unmarried, skirt-chasing surgeon with no ties to America save for an aging father?

Al shook his head. "Brother, I hear you. I've been there myself, and Hell is everything they said it was." A mewing beep on the handlink quickly drew the hologram's attention away from the scene.

B.J. looked up into Sam's pained expression and cracked a sad smile. "You must be sick of hearing go on like this all the time--"

"No, B.J. Sometimes you just need to release your anger. You vent whenever you want." Sam carefully placed the photos back in the envelope. "As for me, I'll be venting to one certain Army nurse who probably isn't aware just how photogenic she really is."

B.J. rubbed his temples. "Lord, I need a drink. You coming?"

Sam noticed the sudden panic in Al's eyes as the hologram stared at his handlink. "Let me straighten up the mess I made. You go on."

"Don't get caught."

B.J. wasn't three steps out into the night when Al began sputtering. "Sam, there's good news and really, really, _really_ bad news..."

Sam strained to see the handlink but Al was twisting and pacing too fast to let him peek. "What? Snipers? A bomb attack?"

"What do you want to hear first?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "Whatever's relevant to _now_, dammit. Just spit it out!"

"Ziggy says those pictures are definitely Hawkeye's ticket to exoneration. If you turn those in to the brass there's a ninety-nine percent chance Margaret will get discharged herself."

Sam sat down again. "I don't plan to turn them in unless I have to, Al, and if Margaret continues to be immune to reason I'll just have to do that. What's the big deal? There must be a thousand nurses in Korea."

"Yes, Sam, but some of these nurses go on to Vietnam. Some of these nurses get stationed in the hospitals there and help take care of the American soldiers, like your brother Tom..."

Sam stiffened. "What are you saying, Al?"

"I'm saying that more than a decade from this point Major Houlihan is stationed in an military hospital where your brother was a patient--"

"Al," Sam interrupted. "Tom was never in a hospital there--"

"Not in the original history, which you changed, because by this certain time he was already dead. In the _revised_ history, Tom has to have some shrapnel taken out of his gut, and Margaret assists at his surgery."

Al took a deep breath, he could see Sam was on pins and needles. "During the operation, she spots a sharp disc the size of a quarter in his abdomen that the doctor doesn't. Had the disc been sewn up, it would have cut into Tom's kidney and he would have bled to death internally. Margaret saves your brother's life, Sam. Ziggy predicts that isn't likely to happen with another nurse."

By now Sam had buried his face into his hands. Two generations of soldiers in two different wars, one nurse, two surgeons...so many lives dependent on the next action he would be taking with a set of black of white prints. The simplest things required the most difficult moves, Sam knew, and if he were to end Margaret Houlihan's career that night who knows how many more innocent young men would be thrust into unmarked graves. How many more foreign shrapnel discs would Margaret's eagle eye have spotted in Da Nang or Saigon had Sam not been too hasty to spare Hawkeye's career? 

Then again, if Hawkeye and B.J. were let go, how many more morgue buses would come bumbling into the 4077th late at night, carrying home soldiers whose blood would stain the hands of fatigued overworked surgeons who wished Margaret had just taken the pranks with good humor?

"I can't lose my brother a second time," Sam said finally. "Not when I managed to get him back."

"And you can't send Margaret packing, either," Al finished his thought. "We'll just have to think of some other way."

"Right," Sam stood and walked as if in a trance toward the exit. "We'll go to plan B."

Al's curiosity was piqued. "Which is?"

"I'll let you know when I think of it."

### * * *

"Psst!"

Margaret, sitting ramrod straight at her desk, looked up from the letter she had been writing. Since the last batch of casualties, the camp had been unusually quiet. Many of the doctors and nurses took advantage of the lull to enjoy a Boris Karloff film that Radar had managed to filch from HQ; Margaret, never partial to depressing monster films, elected to pass away the night alone.

"Psst!" went the voice again. Margaret groaned. She had specifically told Frank she needed a night off, for she wanted to look fresh in the event her letter hit the proper channels and was needed immediately to confirm her claims. Couldn't he just take a cold shower? 

"Who is there?" she boomed angrily to her closed door.

"It's me, Margaret," came a whining reply. "I need to see you, it's urgent."

Margaret sighed, slapping a clipboard over her unfinished correspondence. That Frank could really be a nuisance. "Five minutes. That's all I have patience for right now. The door's open."

Margaret's back was still to the door when she heard it creak slightly as a lumbering body shuffled inside. What she wasn't expecting was a pair of rough hands covering her eyes.

"Guess who?" Sam asked in normal tone. Margaret trembled at first, then clenched her teeth and bolted upright, her hands prying Sam's from her face.

"How dare you deceive me like that, pretending to be Major Burns!" she hissed.

Sam waved a finger in her flushed face. "Now, now, Margaret. I never said I was Frank, I only said 'it's me.' Were you expecting him?"

Margaret pushed past him to thrust open her door. "Get out! The next time I talk to you will be in the presence of another superior officer."

Sam lifted an arm and pushed the door shut, tearing the knob from Margaret's hand. "I've come to settle out of court, Margaret. I know about the letter you sent to Seoul, and I want you to write a follow-up begging the Army's pardon. In turn, B.J. and I have agreed to render a formal apology and make amends in any way you choose."

Margaret scoffed, balling her hands into tight fists; Sam, remembering well the impact of her last punch, took a step backward.

"You could apologize non-stop until the end of the decade, I'm _never_ rescinding my complaint! I've had to deal with your shenanigans since the moment my chopper touched down here."

She maneuvered around Sam back to her desk. "When Trapper left, I thought 'Thank God, maybe he'll tone down his antics," but B.J. arrived and you appeared to gain new strength from that. More jokes, more barbs, more leering glances...we're not here to play, Pierce! There are people hurt and dying here every day, and I can't understand why you feel you need to use me as your personal toy!"

They stood there silently, Margaret glaring sharp daggers into Hawkeye's face, and Sam returning the stare with compassion. Finally, he responded, "You're right, Major."

"Well, of course I'm--what?" Her eyes widened. Margaret hadn't expected Hawkeye to cave so easily, she was prepared for at least another week of arguments.

"I'm very much aware of how grim our situation is, Margaret. I live here, too, and I also see the death and the blood that gets carted through here day after day." Sam pulled her chair closer to him and sat down. "We both know that no one person can operate on these kids for days at a time, looking into their faces and telling them they'll live when we don't even know for sure, _without_ just going completely nuts, and I suppose in my moments of release I got carried away with my treatment of you."

"I should have apologized earlier, I know that now, but you should have put more thought into this complaint, Margaret," he continued. "Remember, it's those young boys out there fighting for their lives and the lives of South Korea that matter more than you and me. If B.J. and I leave, who's going to help them? Frank Burns?"

Margaret puffed up her chest like a mother hen. "Frank Burns is an excellent surgeon!"

"Cut the crap, Margaret. You've seen him operate, and you know the damage he's done. Frank Burns has as much compassion for these boys as the villagers do for North Korea."

Al's holographic image, unbeknownst to either of them, filtered through one wall of the tent and silently took a spot in one corner, intently watching the exchange.

Sam reached into the pocket of his robe and brought out the pictures. "I came here tonight to reason with you, because this court-martial means more than just getting rid of me and B.J., it's going to determine the fate of every kid who gets wheeled into O.R. Had you refused, I was going to resort to blackmail."

He selected a picture from the stack and flipped it on Margaret's desk. "You wouldn't want to see _this_ on the cover of _Stars and Stripes_, would you?"

"Where did you get this?" Margaret gasped, her trembling fingers snatching the photograph.

"I took them. I thought you'd know me by now, that I have my ways," Sam lied. "I was desperate to save my job, and B.J.'s as well. If we lose our licenses there's nothing left. You think B.J.'s gonna go back to school to learn another trade when he's still got back loans to pay, and a wife and baby to support? What about me, you think I want to home to Maine in disgrace? Flipping hamburgers at McDonald's?"

"McDonald's?" Margaret whispered, confused.

"Uh, Sam," Al spoke at last, "McDonald's doesn't come into being for a few years yet."

Sam shook his head. "Whatever, look." He reached into the same pocket for a book of matches. "I told you what I was _going_ to do, now you're going to see what I will do.

Using only his left hand, Sam deftly snapped a cardboard match from its envelope and set it alight. He lit each photograph in his right hand; Margaret gasped again as the small flames spread across each picture, melting the images of her and Major Burns.

"The wastebasket, please?"

Margaret kicked her metal wastebasket over to Sam's feet, and he dropped the burning photos inside. Spying a vase sitting on Margaret's desk, he reached over and removed its flowers before dousing the flames with the water. Radar's blackened photos of Frank and Margaret sizzled for a few seconds.

Margaret peered down at the charred remains of the photos. "I can't believe you actually did that," she said breathlessly. 

"That's two of us!" Al added, waving the handlink at Sam. "But Ziggy says it's working. The chances of a court-martial dropped eleven percent."

Margaret looked up at Sam. "You fool!" she said, astonished. "You just burned your Get Out of Jail Free card."

"I just want you to know that I'm being sincere," Sam shrugged. "I want a truce."

Margaret folded her arms and smirked, and Sam could see that he still had quite a bit of iceberg to chisel away. "What about negatives?"

"Did I say I had the negatives?"

"Did you say you didn't?" The veins in Margaret's neck starting bobbing. "Come on, Pierce, I remember when you and Trapper tried this blackmail thing when Frank and I filed charges against Colonel Blake. You don't think I'm that stupid not to realize that you have backup ammunition, do you?"

Smiling, Sam stood and reached for Margaret's hands, which she reluctantly conceded to him. "You want a meeting with a superior officer. Will Potter suffice?"

"Perhaps." Margaret was wary.

He brought Margaret's hands to his face as if to kiss them, but seeing the confused expression on her face convinced him otherwise. "How about I set up a meeting--you, me, Beej, and Potter. No pictures, no punches, no funny business."

She looked into his eyes again, curious as to whether Hawkeye were trying to pull a fast one, but seeing in him something she had not noticed before. It appeared in the short time between their last confrontation and this moment that Hawkeye had changed--where he once was brash, he seemed quite gentle. Perhaps that last punch had jarred some recessive genes that were currently taking over his genetic makeup, she decided. If that were true, she would have knocked his brains out months ago.

"Fifteen hundred hours, barring any incoming wounded," she said firmly. "And I'm not making any guarantees of a reversal of my complaint."

"Margaret, are there really any guarantees in this life?" Sam said almost at a whisper. With that he slipped out of her tent, but Margaret continued to stand where she was, her stare fixed on the door for several minutes.

Sam strode back to the Swamp with giant steps, hopping over puddles made by jeep tires and flirting with a few stray nurses along the way. Al was waiting for him inside.

"B.J. and Frank are at the monster movie," Al mentioned casually. "Klinger came in and badgered them both into going."

"Uh-huh."

"So now what?" Al asked as Sam kicked off his boots and lay on Hawkeye's cot.

"So now, we wait." Sam intertwined his fingers and rested them behind his head. "We let Margaret chew on Hawkeye's proposal, and if she's anything like the compassionate nurse in Vietnam who saves Tom's life, she'll have a change of heart and I can leap."

Al smiled at his handlink. "She's chewing awfully fast, Sam. Listen to this, the chances of a court-martial are now dropping fifteen percent...sixteen...twenty...Sam, it's working!"

But Al's elation soon began to fade. "What's this?" He slapped the handlink. "Now it's _rising_. Five percent, six..."

"Rising, how?" Sam sat upright. "How could she possibly change her mind so swiftly?"

"Perhaps someone is changing it for her," Al mused.

### * * *

For the third time that evening, Margaret was surprised by a sharp 'Psst' coming from the other side of her door.

"Oh for the love of..." she muttered. In the few minutes since Sam's departure Margaret had undressed and was just tying her robe. "I told you fifteen hundred hours," she called as she stomped to the door, grasping the handle to swish it open. "Why are you still both--"

Instantly a gloved hand covered her mouth and Margaret tried to scream, but her cries were too muffled to be heard by anyone. Not that it would have done much good, for there was nobody within earshot of her tent.

Margaret, however, continued to squeal and squirm as a tall, built soldier forced his way into her quarters, his other hand clamping her left bicep as his body pushed hers against her wardrobe and pinned her there.

The man's face was obstructed with sunglasses, and an army hat was pulled over his brow. "Major Houlihan, you surprise me. I would have thought of all the morons in this camp, you would be one with the most common sense," he seethed. Petrified, Margaret could only stare into the dark lenses of his glasses, hoping to find a glimmer of familiarity of the brute holding her captive. She choked on his strong aftershave cologne, wishing silently for a savior to come bursting through her door. Even Hawkeye.

"You are so fortunate that I've been scouting Captain Pierce's every move for the last two days," he continued huskily. "and to think you can't see through his smokescreen of lies."

Margaret listened to the man babble. Where had she heard that voice before?

"Colonel Flagg?" she asked through the glove, only it sounded like "_ Collnel Phraug_?"

Colonel Flagg released his grip on the major, and she gasped, swallowing as much fresh air as her lungs could take. Flagg unceremoniously pulled a handkerchief from his breast pocket and offered it to her. "I apologize, Major, for my unorthodox tactics. Nevertheless, as a military officer I have believed it to be my duty to serve protect my government and her people from any form of Communist influence, Captain Pierce included. You should take it upon yourself to see that he doesn't bamboozle you, as he almost did tonight."

Margaret sputtered into the handkerchief. She wanted to leave a nice gooey mess for the Colonel's breast pocket in payment for having been manhandled. "What are you talking about?"

"This." He reached for his back pants pockets and waved a crinkled white envelope in her face.

"Th-that's my letter," Margaret whispered. "Where did you get it?"

Flagg clicked his tongue. "Not very bright, major, entrusting a letter like this to some scrawny corporal. I eat his kind for breakfast. And Pierce," he folded the envelope and tucked it his shirt pocket, "is dessert, provided you are willing to comply."

"That letter is not for you, Colonel," Margaret protested, "and I fail to see why the CIA needs to be involved in a simple matter of harassment of an Army nurse." Her voice lowered. "Besides," she added, "in light of a recent development, I may need to reconsider my actions."

Flagg shifted his glance from side to side, a sly attempt to check for eavesdroppers, and edged closer to Margaret, who backed up to her wardrobe. "It seems I've arrived too late. That Commie no goodnik Pierce already has his claws in your back, doesn't he? I suppose he's lead you into some false sense of security by performing some magnanimous act to curry your favor."

Margaret marveled silently at the Colonel's vocabulary, then answered, "Well, he did burn some comprising photographs of myself and--"

"And that's supposed to make it all better, isn't it. All the lies, the jeers, the abject cruelty you've had to endure from this antichrist, all blown away by a cardboard match he probably picked up in a Tokyo whorehouse while on leave to secretly convene with some pinko buddies over saki and swordfish? Houlihan," Margaret felt weighted down by Flagg's hand on her shoulder, "you're smarter than that. What do you suppose will happen if he's allowed to continue here. Do you know for certain that Pierce is the best thing for our valiant boys in combat, that he won't engage in extracurricular activities? Obeying coded messages from the enemy, secretly fluoridating American blood, perhaps injecting one syringe too many of God knows what kind of poison the Commies are concocting in their laboratories?"

Flagg was in her face now; Margaret's head swam from an overdose of powerful cologne and strong, clipped words. Speaking in this confident manner, Flagg could have presented a logical argument that General MacArthur of all people was capable of treason. Breathless, she said, "What more can I do to stop him?"

Flagg smiled.

### * * *

As surprised and touched as he was that Hawkeye had insisted a plate of delicious barbecue ribs, coleslaw, and French fries be set aside for the Admiral upon his return to the Waiting Room, Al had not the stomach to eat. Ziggy's news was grim : Colonel Flagg's pep talk to Margaret was about to cost them their mission, and then some. Now instead of just a court-martial, Ziggy predicted a seventy-three percent chance that Hawkeye would be tried for treason, and Al knew what happened to American traitors in the era of McCarthy and the Rosenbergs.

Hawkeye, still clueless to the events back at camp, pushed the dinner plate toward Al. "You shouldn't let food like this go to waste, Admiral," he said. "Trust me, after seven consecutive months of liver and mashed turnips, this is ambrosia."

He looked deeper into Al's expression. "This is something food can't fix, is it?"

Al shook his head, and Hawkeye asked, "What? Are they short of hands back at camp? Because if they are, let's cut this soiree short so I can help..."

"No, it's not that. There's a lull with casualities." Al nibbled absentmindedly on a French fry. "This is something far worse, something that could the effect the future of everyone in Korea."

"Has the war escalated?"

"No more than expected. No, this situation is centered in the 4077th, for it seems our friend Flagg--"

At this, Hawkeye let out a loud guffaw. "Oh, come on! You actually feel _threatened_ by that clown? He's harmless."

"I don't know," Al remembered the apalling statistics Ziggy fed him through the handlink. Sam's--and Hawkeye's--fate didn't look good. "Major Houlihan is going to corroborate Flagg's claims that you're a loose cannon. Originally, she was just going to file a harrassment complaint against you and Captain Hunnicut, but Flagg seems to have raised her ire."

Hawkeye paled. "What?! Margaret thinks I'm a Communist? That's insane!" He stood and paced the room. "What could possibly convince her to finger me as red? I took out her appendix, for crying out loud! She asked for me personally, I don't get it."

"Apparently, the colonel is quite a motivational speaker."

"Apparently, Hot Lips has been dipping into the oxygen tanks," Hawkeye shot back. "I'd expect a complaint, but this is just so loopy."

Al glanced at his watch. The camp was asleep, though Sam was probably anxiously pacing the Swamp in Hawkeye's lanky gait, dreading his meeting the next afternoon. Knowing Flagg's motives, both Leaper and hologram expected an inquisition the likes of which nobody in Korea had seen.

"Well, we'll know in a little while when we can send you back to camp, although I can't guarantee the climate upon your return, nor can I determine what's going to happen when you get back. I'm supposed to work damage control, but I don't seem to be doing that well today, do I?"

Hawkeye stopped pacing, then approached a hunched over Al and patted him on the shoulder. "How can I blame you for anything? We've known each other a day, and how could I hate anyone with a stash of such fine cigars?"

Al half-smiled and stood to leave. "Well, I'm no quitter, and I'm going to get you out of this mess Margaret and Flagg have created." He gestured to the food. "You're welcome to seconds. I imagine the ladies got their fill."

"They all waddled out of here an hour ago, stuffed and happy," Hawkeye said, nearly diving toward the plate of ribs. 

"Even Dr. Beeks?" Al still had troubled believing Tina when she informed them of their informal dinner party.

"_Especially_ Dr. Beeks. We had a great time. Once her intial apprehension wore off and she managed to relax, she began to realize how charming and suave I can be." Hawkeye sank into a meaty riblet. "She laughed at my every joke."

"Really," Al said. "I've known Dr. Beeks for years, and I don't think I've ever seen her laugh."

Hawkeye winked. "You haven't been telling the right jokes."

### * * *

Expecting to see engineer Gooshie working intently at the main control panel of super computer Ziggy, Al saw instead the two figures of Tina and Dr. Beeks hunched over a small monitor as he entered the room. He could the hear furious clicking sounds as Tina's fingers swept over an adjoining keyboard; she was a master typist, averaging well over eighty words a minute. Impressive, yet Al knew the lovely doctor's fingers were capable of performing other, more intimate tasks.

"Where's Gooshie?" he asked.

"Out to dinner," Tina answered absently. "He wasn't in a rib mood, so he said he was going out for sushi."

Al rolled his eyes. Sushi for Gooshie. Good grief.

"What's up in Korea?" he asked, pressing his palm against a neon square imbedded in Ziggy's main panel.

"The time in Korea, 1952, is zero-six hundred hours," droned Ziggy. "Dr. Beckett is still asleep, as is Captain Hunnicut. I am still trying to locate Colonel Flagg, but he appears to have eluded us. I have found very little information regarding him since the end of the Korean War."

"I doubt you will, Zig," Al sighed. "Knowing him, he's had all personal files burned with the yule log, and he's probably slashed his fingertips to prevent print matches." He reached into his breast pocket for a cigar, and finding none, cursed quietly. The entire Leap was about to go to Hell; he had never wanted a smoke so badly in his life.

"Don't worry about Flagg," he said loudly. "I'm sure he'll turn up at the meeting." He rounded the panel and came behind the two females, both of whom were obviously too engrossed with their findings to care about Al's cigar withdrawal and impending anxiety toward rejoining Sam.

"What's so fascinating that's keeping you two from work?" he wanted to know. "You're not playing Doom again on that thing?"

Tina flashed her paramour a bright grin. "We're accessing Hawkeye's files, and the files of everyone else at the 4077th. He's told us so many wonderful stories about them, that we just had to see for ourselves."

Al dipped his head between Tina and Verbena for a look, then remembered that Hawkeye's and B.J.'s files still reflected their current, tragic histories. He resumed a straight posture and remarked, "I imagine most of them were in their thirties during the war, so they all must have died."

Verbena's smile was sad. "For the most part, yes. Walter O'Reilly, however, is still alive and living in St. Louis, and some of Max Klinger's children went to Korea during the Seoul Olympics to visit some relatvies and just never left."

"How about Erin Hunnicut?" Al asked.

Tina typed for a few seconds and eyed the data on the screen. "Like father, like daughter. She's a surgeon at Johns Hopkins."

Al nodded, hopeful that Captain Hunnicut managed to wield some influence on his only child in the years following the war. "Ziggy," he called to the ceiling, "how do the percentages look now?"

"There is now a seventy-seven percent chance Captains Pierce and Hunnicut will be court-martialed and discharged from the Army," responded the super computer. "Unfortunately for Doctor Beckett, the odds of changing Major Houlihan's mind for a second time is very slim."

"How slim?" Al demanded, for a slim chance beat none at all.

"I'd rather not say," Ziggy choked. "The number is too small."

The clicking on the keyboard stopped dramatically as Tina and Verbena lowered their heads. "Does this mean Sam is stuck in 1952 Korea forever?" Verbena asked.

Al shook his head. "Sam will leap regardless of the outcome of this mission. Hawkeye will have to deal with the future himself." He pounded his fist on Ziggy's main panel. "Damn it! To think we were _so_ close in getting Margaret to reconsider."

Tina stared angrily at the monitor, now displaying the nurse's files. "Look at this. She's buried in the freaking Arlington National Cemetery! Boy, if she only knew how many boys lying next to her could have been saved if this court-martial hadn't happened. If she only knew how many families were affected..."

Al didn't listen to the end of Tina's sentence. His mind echoed the word 'family.'

He snapped his fingers. "I got it!" Turning to the two ladies, he announced, "We'll have to break some rules, but if we do everything according to my plan we can lower the odds and get Sam out of there while saving Hawk's and B.J.'s future."

Al moved excitedly between Tina and Verbena, his voice bubbling over. "Verbena, I need you to get Hawkeye ready for the Accelerator, because he's going in. We'll think up something to tell him on the way. Tina, do you still have that dress of your grandmother's?"

"It-it's at home, but it won't take long to get it," Tina stammered. "Why do you need it?"

"You'll soon find out. But on the way out, I need you to get Sammy Jo down here to monitor the Accelerator to aim Hawkeye back into his own body, then displacing Sam into Margaret."

He grabbed Tina by the shoulders and ushered her out of the room. "We may just have a chance to tell Margaret ourselves after all. Now, go!" After practically pushing Tina over the threshold, he turned to Verbena, who raised a hand to him and quietly hurried away without help.

Al then rushed back to Ziggy's main control panel crouched behind, opening a small cabinet that housed an in-house phone. Lifting the receiver, he dialed three numbers and waited.

"Donna!" he smiled. "Thank God you're there. We're going to need your help for this one..."

Five minutes before the appointed hour, both B.J. and Sam were lumbering toward Colonel Potter's office when Sam suddenly halted in his tracks, entranced by light guitar music coming from the mess tent. He turned and saw in the distance a young, sandy-haired officer perched on a hill overlooking camp, strumming the instrument and singing :

> _Through early morning fog I see  
visions of the things to be  
the pains that are withheld for me  
I realize and I can see..._
> 
> That suicide is painless  
it brings on many changes  
and I can take or leave it if I please.

"Hmph. That Spalding," B.J. muttered, and left it at that. Sam, still straining to hear more of the song, noticed B.J. had gained some ground and dashed forward to catch up to him.

"You really think Margaret is just going to drop this, as if nothing happened?" B.J. asked. He still had not believed Sam when he was told of the meeting. B.J. had not been in Korea as long as Hawkeye, but he still thought he knew enough to see when Major Houlihan was adamant about something.

"Don't be so skeptical, Beej. I told you I talked to her." Underneath the confident shell, Sam's stomach flipped like a gymnast. He had heard nothing from Al all night, and he spent most of the morning choking down mugs of black sludge that passed for coffee in the camp. Fellow doctors and nurses had stared curiously at him during breakfast, fearing a nervous breakdown, he looked so pale and lost.

Radar looked equally blanched when they greeted him inside the tent.

B.J. raised an eyebrow. "What is it?"

"Nothing." Radar lied.

"Come on, Radar," Sam chided, hands on hips. "You look like you've been caught with a cigarette. What's the deal?"

Radar spoke in hushed tones. "I'm not supposed to say, sir, Colonel Potter asked me to keep quiet."

"Surely you can give a hint, Radar," B.J. wheedled. "We won't tell."

Radar glanced nervously at Potter's shut door. "Well, all I can say is don't go in there waving any _flags_." He wringed his hands tightly.

B.J. frowned. "Waving flags, what is that supposed to--" he mumbled before realization dawned. "Oh, for crying out loud!"

Sam leaned in to Radar. "You're sure. You saw Flagg in there with Margaret?"

"She brought him, sir. Just about scared the bejeebers out of me." Radar started to wheeze, and Sam snatched a tissue from his desk and offered it to the corporal.

"How did Potter look?" Sam asked.

"He's not too happy."

B.J. let out a loud, heavy sigh. "Don't be so skeptical, Beej," he mocked. "Maybe now I should be more concerned about being locked in a gulag until Erin's fortieth birthday."

Sam silenced B.J. with a fierce look. "Hey, I got us into this mess, and I'll get us out. We just need to keep cool, otherwise Flagg really is going to think we're hiding something instead of just being the insensitive jerks Margaret sees. Keep cool."

Sam straightened, smoothed his uniform and led the way to Potter's door, but not before Radar stopped him with, "Captain!"

When Sam turned to face Radar, he saw instead a small stuffed teddy bear in his vision. "For luck," Radar explained as Sam accepted the toy. "It's gotten me through the war so far."

Sam looked into the bear's black bead eyes and thanked Radar. "If only he had Kung-Fu grip, too," he added as he and B.J. entered Potter's office. As expected, they were met by the aging colonel, the angry nurse, and the nefarious blowhard Flagg.

Flagg smirked, pointing to the toy bear. "So, now you're stealing from Toys for Tots. I suppose your pants are filled with loose change meant for the Red Cross."

Sam looked hard at the CIA agent, marvelling at his strong resemblance to the junior version that nearly ran the Project into the ground years before, his time. "Colonel Flagg!" he exclaimed with exaggerated surprise. "How nice to see you. How are your wife and my kids?"

Colonel Potter, having watched the exchange of insults with slight irritation, had had enough. "Children, behave," he warned dryly. He gestured Sam and B.J. to two empty seats to the left of this desk, while Margaret and Flagg took two on the right. Sam sat with his hands in his lap, head down, as memories of sitting in the principal's office faded in and out of conscious.

"If both of you have exhausted yourselves of verbal zingers, we can get on with this meeting that Captain Pierce has asked me to convene," Potter began, seated behind his desk. "Hawkeye, you called this powwow, so I'll throw the ball to you."

"I only recall reserving a table for four," Sam said coldly, "and I would prefer to start until all irrelevant parties have left. So anyone whose initials are S.F. need not loiter."

"My presence here today is just as relevant as yours," Flagg dismissed him.

"Oh, really? You're relevant to claims of harassment against me and Captain Hunnicut? Funny, I don't recall pinching your bottom in the O.R., Colonel. Course, it's hard to tell when everyone's wearing masks." Sam shifted in his seat.

Margaret's mouth dropped open. "Colonel Potter, would you please tell Captain Pierce to watch his language?"

Before Sam could fire a retort, he caught the Door open from the corner of his eye and turned his attention to Al, who was standing just behind Colonel Potter. "Sam," Al yelled, out of breath. "We're going to try something different here. So hang on, because Hawkeye's about to bump you out of his body and into Margaret's, so when you get there, deny everything!" He looked at his handlink. "Gotta go. Bye!"

By now, B.J., Margaret and Colonel Flagg had erupted into a fresh argument, and Sam, watching helplessly as Al disappeared into thin air, could only shake his head and say, "What?"

Colonel Potter shushed the tense dialogue boiling over in front of him and asked Sam, "You have something to say, Pierce?"

Sam did, but he leapt before he could open his mouth. Within three seconds he had slid over three chairs without moving.

### * * *

Doctor Donna Elesee, dressed in Tina's grandmother's ivory slim-waisted frock, stood with Al just outside the Waiting Room as Verbena administered a few tests on their patient. The staff had to work fast clearing the room of any evidence of Hawkeye's stay; the homemade still was moved to Al's office, whether or not it would remain in use depended on the outcome of this Leap. Success or not, Al was certain to need a drink.

Donna's nose itched from the thin fishnet veil that was attached to the matching pillbox hat. "Do I have to wear this thing?" she complained, blowing upward to move the veil from her face. 

Al, back in his Navy uniform, patted Donna on the shoulder. "We need to make this look as authentic as possible. I'm just relieved the dress fits, much less the fact that Tina hung on to it so long."

Donna folded the white linen handkerchief she was holding into a tiny, thick triangle. "I suppose some people need objects to hold onto the past," she said quietly, thinking of Sam and all the things he left behind.

"Hey, Donna." Al touched her chin and turned her head toward him. "Don't go off into Dreamland now. If we're lucky, you might not have to go in, but if you do, we need you here to help Sam. You know what to say, right?"

"Right."

"You have the locket?"

Donna fingered the heavy trinket hanging around her neck. "Check."

Al took a deep breath as the Waiting Room door opened and Verbena Beeks exited, her face registering mild shock.

"How is she, Doctor?" Donna asked her.

Verbena toyed with her stethoscope, thinking of the proper words. "Fiesty," she said finally, "with a mouth like a sailor's."

"Good. At least there'll be no language barriers," Al muttered, straightened his hat and entered. Margaret Houlihan, rubbing the arm where Verbena had measured her blood pressure, recognized Al's Naval insignia and stood.

"Admiral," she nodded politely. "I do not recall being brought here. Why am I being detained? Does this concern Colonel Flagg?"

Al could only stare at his friend's face, surprised with the nurse's calm candor. Perhaps she had expected that anything involving Colonel Flagg would entail things like secret rooms and strange people, this being no exception. Al was only relieved that Margaret had not yet looked into a mirror.

"You could say that, Major." Al's tone was authoritative, and Margaret stiffened her pose. "I really can't go into details of the CIA's actions. We can't compromise national security, you see."

"Of course." Margaret nodded enthusiastically.

"We've been keeping an eye on Colonel Sam Flagg for some time, and have reason to believe he may be a double agent." Al enjoyed the look of horror that suddenly appeared on the face Margaret was using. "We also understand he has approached you regarding one Captain Benjamin Pierce."

"I-I, yes," Margaret stammered. "He led me to believe Hawk-er, Captain Pierce was a Communist sympathizer. I had earlier considered filing a harassment charge against him, but--"

Al heightened the dramatic overtones of his performance. Oh, if only Joseph Papp were alive to see this, he thought. "Major, I must demand that any actions taken against Captain Pierce be ceased immediately! We've been watching him carefully as well and have found him to be one of the Army's best assets." It wasn't a complete lie, Al knew, and he hoped the sincerity in his voice could sway the nurse.

"What about Colonel Flagg?"

Al stepped closer to Margaret. "You let the CIA worry about Flagg. Right now it is imperative for the benefit of the United States Army that you refrain from any actions that could threaten the jobs of Captain Pierce and any other surgeon in the 4077th. I don't have to tell you how fortunate you are to be working among such talented medical staff."

"No, you don't," Margaret said with a twinge of guilt. "We've saved so many lives. But I can't just let Captain Pierce go unpunished for all the times he--"

"Major!" Al barked. "Let us worry about doling out punishment. Do you think you will be able to hold your tongue for the duration of the war?"

"I don't know."

Al sighed, reluctant to pull this next rabbit out of his hat. Nevertheless, this was their last chance of totally changing Margaret's mind and altering the futures of everyone involved for the better. "I see." He removed his hat. "Major, there is somebody outside who would like to meet you. A civilian, but as you will see, she is very much involved in this war as you are."

Al retreated to the door, eased it open, and escorted Donna to the center of the room. He took note to watch Donna's reaction, for she had never seen the inside of the Waiting Room by choice; Donna was not sure how she would react to seeing her husband's body, a mere shell wherein housed those displaced by him leap after leap. She knew never to expect to see any glint of recognition in his eyes, any love, any warmth. 

Donna bit her lip, and a tear slid down her left cheek. Al pretended not to notice, hoping Donna would not freak out in front of Margaret. "Major Houlihan, this is Mrs. Donna Beckett of Crabapple Cove, Maine."

Margaret, astonished, extended a hand to her. "Pleased to meet you. If I may ask, what brings you to Korea?"

Al and Donna glanced at each other. Neither one was prepared for that question. "I-I'm here discuss to Captain Pierce," Donna answered.

Margarget looked away for a moment, as if recalling a distant memory. "Crabapple Cove...isn't that where Pierce is from also?"

Donna's hands were visibly shaking, so she clasped them together, palms flat. "I've known the Pierces for many years, Major, the captain's father has been my family physician since I got married. I don't know exactly your situation, but I can vouch for Captain Pierce's abilities as a doctor, and I want to ask you to please reconsider your complaints."

A deep breath, eyes lowered. Donna was not sure how much longer she could stand to look at Sam's face without breaking down into uncontrollable sobs. "Captain Pierce is a good, respectful man, Major, and I can't let his name be dragged down in such a manner. It would break his father's heart to hear all of this happening."

Margaret lightly touched Donna's praying hands, prompting the latter to gasp quietly. "Mrs. Beckett, I know you mean well, and you've come such a long way to try to convince me to drop my complaints, but please note that I have been wronged! How would like to spend your days being pinched and ogled and propositioned until your reserve just breaks down into pieces?"

Al wanted to scream. If he continued to let Margearet talk, Donna was likely to become too enrapt in the major's point of view, provided she was even listening for all the thoughts of Sam racing through her mind. Gently he nudged Donna as a signal to move on, and she quickly freed herself from Margaret's touch.

"I understand your position, Major, I don't think I'd enjoy be treated as an object, but you're in Korea for a higher purpose than lodging complaints." Donna reached for her locket and, holding the clasp between thumb and forefinger, pried it open. Inside were two pictures of Sam, one taken at birth and the other at age sixteen.

Margaret studied the small round photos Donna held up to her. "This is my Sam," Donna explained, her voice quivering. "He was drafted a few months ago, and I can't you how afraid I am for him. My baby hasn't seen the borders of New England, much less a foreign country--" She could go no further, she wished Al would just let her retreat to her apartment where she could cry until her head swelled. Seeing the concerned expression on Sam's face did nothing to ease her either.

"I had no idea--" Margaret was close to tears as well. "Have you heard any news from him since left home."

"A letter came, weeks ago," Donna whispered, her hand clutching Al's arm for support. "He made it through unscathed so far, but if he were wounded I would hope a good doctor would be there to help him."

"What mother wouldn't want that for her son?" Margaret mused. _Or wife for her husband_, Donna wished to add. 

Margaret reached out to hug Donna, but the latter shied away. "Okay, Admiral," the major. "In light of Mrs. Beckett's testimony, I will reconsider my actions for now, for the sake of her son and every soldier sent to our unit for medical care."

At last, thought Al. He let go of Donna and saluted. "Major, thank you. We'll have you restored to your unit very soon."

Margaret returned the salute. "Admiral, Mrs. Beckett. I promise I will not compromise the safety of our soldiers, including your son."

Donna and Al were already to the door as Margaret spoke. Through the dampened veil, Donna mouthed a "thank you" as they departed.

Door closed, both let out relieved sighs. Dr. Beeks was waiting with Al's handlink. "How did we do?" he asked Verbena.

Verbena held up the handlink. "See for yourself. One hundred percent chance of Hawkeye's exoneration."

"Thank you, Margaret!" Al cried. "Sam, get ready to leap!"

"And leap home this time," Donna added, her heart swelling with hope.

### * * *

"Hawkeye?"

Restored to his own body and time, Captain Hawkeye Pierce blinked his eyes, curious to know how he had suddenly been transferred from O.R. to Potter's office, holding Radar's teddy bear in his lap. Fragments of memory flickered in his brain, but he couldn't piece them together fast enough to satisfy the impatient quartet staring at him.

Colonel Potter appeared irritated by Hawkeye's sudden complacence. "Are you going to talk, son, are you just going to fondle that toy bear for the whole hour?"

"Pervert," Flagg spat, prompting a warning glance from B.J.

Sam, now seeing the meeting through Margaret Houlihan's eyes, fortunately had more experience in matters of leaping into bodies and quickly move to cover for Hawkeye, still disoriented after his own leap.

"Colonel?" He sat on the edge of his chair. "If I may be so bold, I would like to speak first."

By now Colonel Potter was leaning forward on his elbows, his fingers massaging his temples. "Fine by me, if Pierce doesn't object. The sooner we get started the sooner we can leave. I've got an appointment with an Agatha Christie novel I don't want to miss."

Sam stood, and Colonel Flagg, awaiting a barrage of disparaging remarks towards Hawkeye by this lady barracuda, leaned back in chair and smiled. "Yesterday, I did a terrible thing," Sam began. "I assaulted a surgeon in such a capacity as to render him unable to work at a time when he is needed, and I am sorry."

Potter abruptly sat up, he wasn't expecting to hear that. Flagg, equally surprised, relaxed again, thinking perhaps Sam was easing into an attack, pouncing at their most vulnarable point. Brilliant strategy.

"Being a surgical nurse is a very stressful job, about as stressful as being a surgeon, I suppose." B.J. offered a quiet "Amen" at this. "I admit I flew off the handle in dealing with my personal situation with Captain Pierce, and I would like to come to some sort of agreement with you," he was looking at Hawkeye now, "and Captain Hunnicut regarding our professional relationship. In exchange, I would be willing to drop all complaints against the two of you."

The look of confidence held by Flagg flushed boiling red, and his chair nearly toppled over as he shot upward. "Now wait just a damn minute here--"

"Flagg, you're out of order!" Potter barked. "Now sit your butt back down until the chair recognizes you."

"I'll do no such thing," Flagg seethed. "I--"

Sam, noticing a white slip of paper poking out from Flagg's breast pocket and snatched it. "It seems I'm forgetting my manners," he announced loudly, and Flagg, still angry, only sputtered quietly but did not sit down. "Colonel Flagg deserves some credit for my decision. After all, he was kind enough to intercept a formal complaint I had hastily sent off to HQ."

B.J. elbowed a nearly catatonic Hawkeye. "You were right, there was a letter," he whispered. Hawkeye could only answer him with a weary groan.

Holding the folded letter far in front of him, Sam ripped it in two. "Colonel Flagg," he said, craning his neck toward the flabbergasted officer, "I thank you for preventing me from turning a simple misunderstanding into a potential danger for the 4077th, and I want you know that you're kindness will not go unrewarded."

"That's right," B.J.'s voice was chipper. "Your next major bypass surgery is on us. Complete with clean sheets and all-you-can-breathe ether."

"Uh, you're welcome." Flagg looked just as confused as Hawkeye, and finally returned to his chair thinking that perhaps if he sat down and concentrated he could recall the exact moment his planned ambush backfired.

Sam, anxious to leap, looked around for Al and, seeing his hologram companion suddenly materialize behind Hawkeye, said, "I'm done, Colonel."

"Sam, you did it," Al smiled. "Everything is going to be okay from here on out. B.J. and Peg don't divorce, and Hawkeye goes on to become one of the best surgeons in the state of Maine."

Colonel Potter slapped his hands on his desk. "Well, this is my kind of meeting, short and sweet. I'll leave you to Pierce and Hunnicut to work out your differences, Margaret." He stood to leave, as did B.J. and Hawkeye, who needed a little support from his roommate.

"Captain, are you okay?" Sam rushed to his side.

Hawkeye blinked, his eyes glassy and distant. "I'm not sure. I was just remembering this dream I had last night where I surrounded by beautiful women and a huge plate of barbecued ribs." His waved his finger around the room. "And you were there, and you, and you..."

Sam clasped his hands around Hawkeye's arm and helped B.J. lift the confused doctor. "So nice to know you've been paying attention," he muttered. 

"Excuse me!" Flagg, restored to his normal arrogant self, exploded. "But there's still the matter of the CIA's charges against Captain Pierce."

"What charges?" B.J. asked. "Without Margaret's testimony, you have zilch."

"Colonel Flagg, let me tell you what you and the CIA can do with your charges..." Colonel Potter began."

"Oooh. I want to hear this," Al squealed as he and Sam leaned in closer to hear. As Potter proceeded to verbally tear a new orifice into Colonel Flagg, however, Sam's body started to tingle sharply and just as Potter's fire and brimstone hit full speed Sam leaped, forcing Al back into his own time.

### * * *

_April 12, 1970, somewhere in Vietnam_  
  
"Easy, soldier. You need your rest."

Tom Beckett felt a soft hand graze his left cheek. Looking up into the blinding bulb hanging over his head, he saw in the foreground of the lighted ceiling a friendly face framed in blond hair. Tiny wrinkles bordered her eyes, and her tired face implied that sleep was only a passing acquaintance with her, but that did not seem to bother Tom. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

"What's your name, angel?" He asked, his voice cracking and weak.

The nurse pulled the blanket up to Tom's chin. "Honey, I'm no angel." She held up his limp wrist to check his pulse. "But you can call me Margaret."

Tom shifted his shoulders to get a better view of his surroundings, not realizing until a swarm of doctors and nurses roamed past his cot that he was in a hospital. "What happened to me?"

"You took some shrapnel in the stomach, but don't worry. I made sure the doctor took out everything that wasn't supposed to be in your body." Her smile was gentle, yet radiant, and what little memory Tom had of the events that led to his being wounded her lost in that smile.

"I had a friend...Magic...big black guy..." He started to cough, spittle ran a trail down his chin, and Margaret mopped him clean with a handkerchief.

"He'll be fine. They're putting a cast on his leg now."

"Where's my stuff?"

Margaret leaned over on her stool and reached under the cot for Tom's folded uniform, on which sat a thin wallet, dogtags, and some miscellaneous items. "I got a letter from home a while back," he explained. "I hadn't read it yet, but it looks like I've got the time now."

"And you'll have plenty of time to read more letters," Margaret added pointedly. "You're out of danger now, I saw to that."

She helped Tom open the envelope postmarked from Indiana; a small colored square fluttered from the folds of the letter.

Margaret held the photo to him. "Family?" Tom nodded and introduced his nurse to the two-dimensional versions of his parents, sister Katie, and brother Sam. Margaret glanced at the image of the teenage boy in the photograph, hunched over a tractor in faded denim overalls, and felt a twinge in her heart.

Tom noticed the nurse cover her mouth in disbelief. "Anything wrong?"

"Oh, no, nothing," Margaret laughed uneasily. "I've never been to Indiana myself, but for some reason I'm certain I've seen that face before."

  


### THE END

Written 1997 Kathryn Lively  


   [1]: mailto:kathrynlively@yahoo.com



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